


Maybe the Sun Isn't the Sun

by Slaymin



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - College/University, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Like a crockpot would call this burn slow, M/M, VERY VERY VERY slow burn, also alcohol use... abuse?, like I mean SLOWWWW, save me from my own mind, some deep existential thoughts and thots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2020-03-01 08:41:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 77,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18796879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slaymin/pseuds/Slaymin
Summary: Noctis Lucis Caelum, the sole heir to the Insomnian throne, is not pleased that he was forced to spend his last summer vacation before university and the rest of his life in a new nation, Altissia, knowing absolutely no one, or what he wants to do with his last few precious years of freedom. But when a blond, blue-eyed, overly-friendly, slightly-awkward barista decides that he is in need of a friend, Noctis soon finds himself in a whirlwind of a summer and an even more complicated four years at the University of Lucis, Insomnia. Amid trying to learn how to efficiently run a country on the brink of war, trying to not let the pressures of a crown and its ever-present duties crush him, and the fears and trauma that have plagued him since his youth, Noctis learns how to love and be loved in a way that he never knew was possible. Throw in a couple of ragtag friends, the idea of falling for a boy, and the way that blonde hair and blue eyes make him feel like the most important person in the world, and Noctis will truly bring to understand the meaning of friendship, love, and, most importantly, life itself. Even if it means losing everything he once knew.





	1. How an Iced Coffee Changed Everything

**Author's Note:**

> So... Hi! I'm glad you found this work that I've been working on for WAY too long. I really hope you all enjoy this monster of a child that I've been carrying in my brain when I should have been paying attention in my physics lecture, literally all my lectures in college and my breaks at work. Please leave me any comments you want and message me if you have questions or just wanna talk and just... I'm really glad I'm finally posting this. So really, enjoy!

Noctis wasn’t paying attention to anything in particular at that point in time. The hissing of espresso machines, the clatter of dishes, the monotonous conversations between patrons and workers, all seemed to coalesce into a giant bubble of nothingness. To be fair, he hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before, or really any night that summer. Each night he told himself he would go to sleep earlier, and every night he disappointed his future morning self. That’s why he was in no way prepared for the cashier to say:

“Large iced coffee, soy milk, two pumps of caramel sweetener, one of vanilla, light ice, right?”

“I’ll get a large iced-- wait, yeah,” Noctis replied, surprised at the sudden progression of events. Noctis wasn’t the brightest when it comes to social interactions, and didn’t really remember most things about most people, especially random workers at cafes in different countries. SO how this cashier remembered his, very involved order to put in the nicest, unbiased terms, was lost on him. “How did you know?” He asked, taking out his wallet.

“You’ve come in here like every day this summer, bro. And you order the exact same, very particular drink.” The cashier responded while perusing the price menu by the state-of-the-art, prehistoric register that still had typewriter-like keys and buttons. Altissia had its charms, but automated registers with user-friendly interfaces had not yet made it to every establishment. “Too bad I can never remember how much it actually costs.” He chuckled to himself. “That’ll be 350 gil.”

“Am I that predictable?” Noctis asked before giving the tender to the blond cashier. Their hands briefly touched in the swap of money for goods, and Noctis took this moment to look at the other boy. He was about the same age as him and had light-blue eyes, not unlike a perfect afternoon sky.

“That, and I’m just like super observant. Not much happens here, to be honest.” The blond responded after he pulled his hand away. “I have a couple ‘regulars’ here but you’re the only one that orders something so… annoying?” The cashier laughed and Noctis couldn’t help but want to laugh with him too even if he had just been insulted.

“Hey. I’m the customer and I’m pretty sure the customer is always right.” Noctis chuckled a little which prompted the cashier to join in too. Noctis didn’t even notice the small line that had begun to form behind him. The people in the queue didn’t seem to mind, however. Nobody really minded anything here in Altissia, “The City of Love and Serenity, Under the Tidemother’s Watchful Eyes.” At least that’s what the brochures that were basically shoved at Noctis when he first arrived said.

“Don’t worry, Noctis. It’s getting annoyingly made right now.”

“Wait… How did you know my name?” Noctis was sure he hadn’t mentioned his name in their interaction or mentioned it before. And although he hadn’t been approached on the street yet for being a prince, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Sooner had come much too soon.

“Oh,” The cashier responded, blushing a little. The growing reddish hue on his otherwise white face accentuated the small clusters of freckles around his cheeks. “Your name is, like, totally on your wallet.” He pointed at Noctis’ wallet and sure enough, above the Lucian crest was, embroidered in royal calligraphy, his first name. “Sorry if I surprised you though. I guess I’m just your overly-friendly, slightly-awkward, neighborhood cashier.”

Noctis chuckled through his nose at this long-winded description the blond had of himself. He actually smiled and his eyes crinkled a little, allowing his dark blue eyes to sparkle for just a second.  “Well,” He squinted to read the blond’s slightly smudged nametag. “Prompto, it’s hard to come by genuinely friendly people where I’m from, so you’re a refreshing treat.”

Prompto laughed a little too loudly at that; Noctis remained unaware of how weird calling him a treat probably was. At least he hadn’t called him a snack...

“What did I say?” Noctis asked.

“I guess I’m a… treat?” Prompto replied raising his eyebrows up and down. Now it was Noctis’ turn to blush redder than a cockatrice.

“That’s… not what I meant…” Noctis replied, shyly averting his gaze to the counter below him. He then, finally, noticed that a healthy number of people had joined the queue and a few might be annoyed at this point. But they would never show it; Altissia was just like that.

“Oh, Noctis. Don’t be embarrassed. We all say weird things sometimes. Like I once tasted Chocobo poop, not on a dare, but because I thought I could become a Chocobo or at least run as fast as one… That might have been a bit weird and I think I’m going to quit my job here so I don’t have to see you again and be reminded of how I told you how I voluntarily ate poop.” Both boys laughed at that. Prompto because he just divulged one of his deepest, most embarrassing secrets to a stranger, and Noctis because someone had just told him that he may still have traces of Chocobo poop in their mouth.

“I have a… large iced coffee with  soy milk, two pumps of caramel sweetener, one of vanilla, and light ice on the bar.” A brown haired barista called from the bar.

“Well that’s your drink and there are people that want to take in all this blond beauty,” Prompto gestured to himself, making sure to embellish the faint shadow of definition on his arms. “So, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow when you get the same drink at the same time.”

“I really am a regular aren’t I?” Noctis asked after dropping in a 100 gil tip into the tip jar that he was sure that Prompto designed. Who else would have drawn a Chocobo taking a dump of gil? It even said: Here’s a TIP: Don’t eat yellow snow. Unless you’re into getting dehydrated.

“You’re such a regular that I’m going to come up with a cool nickname for you. Don’t worry, you won’t be Noctis for long.” Prompto laughed at his own joke, gave a quick wave to Noctis, and turned to help his next customer.

“Sometimes, I wish I wasn’t Noctis Lucis Caelum,” Noctis said quietly to himself, his mood deflating back to its baseline zero.

 

* * *

 

Altissia in the afternoon was almost as beautiful as it was during the morning and the night, but honestly, it was and will always be the epitome of beauty no matter the time of day. If one were to open a dictionary to the words: beauty, serenity, divinity, or really any synonym of any of those words, one would see Altissia’s flower-lined balconies, gushing waterways, and rustic architecture.

Noctis found out this beautiful truth by just walking along the waterways and feeling the light ocean breeze lapping against his skin. He felt the collective Altissian soul rising between the cobblestone walkways, flowing through the mazes of alleyways, and falling from the meticulously sculpted rooftops.

Noctis walked by a couple of flower carts, filled to the brim with chrysanthemums, lilies, roses, and other florals. The cashier was busy chatting with a customer about flowers and their lives. They might be friends, might be complete strangers. That’s what really surprised Noctis on one of his first days in the city on the ocean. The people in Altissia actually talked to one another. They waved to their neighbors and knew everyone’s names. Noctis couldn’t tell you who lived down his apartment hall, let alone across Insomnia.

And when the Altissians talked to each other, they actually talked to each other. Not just about the weather, Insomnia’s topic of choice, but about things that actually mattered. People stopped and asked how Sumia’s aunt has been doing since moving to Gralea, how little Ricken was liking his new school since his family moved back to Lestallum.

And to a city-born and raised boy like him, this was completely new. Altissia was completely foreign. Not just in the fact that it wasn’t his home country but because their culture--- their whole way of life--- was so drastically different.

Maybe that’s why his father so strongly suggested that Noctis go on the trip before he started his first year of university.

It was almost three o’clock and the sun still hung high in the sky, beating down on him, but not burning. Noctis had finished his coffee and didn’t have much planned for the rest of the day. One might assume that the crown prince of the most influential nation in all of Eos would have some sort of plan for his day. And to be fair, if he were in Lucis, in Insomnia, one would be correct. Every day, from the day Noctis was born, was completely planned by his father or, more recently, the council and so-called “princely duties.” These ubiquitous duties could take the form of anything ranging from combat practice with his assigned Crownsguard bodyguard, Gladiolus, to trying - and mostly failing - to learn ancient Solheim with his retainer Ignis, and even, sitting in on boring governmental meetings about things he did not care about in the slightest. (Although the inner workings of how military prowess is garnered, maintained, and utilized might interest most nineteen-year-olds, Noctis was not one of them.)

He barely had time to breathe, let alone do anything that he actually might enjoy.

But here in Altissia, oceans away from the towering citadel and its daunting towers, Noctis was free. Free from itineraries that begin at 6 am and end at 9 pm. Free from mandatory etiquette classes, because who cares which fork you use first as long as the food tastes good, right? Free from the burden of being the crown prince who would someday, probably soon, take the throne from his father and be stuck in Insomnia every day of every year.

“How many times has my father left Insomnia in the past year?” Noctis asked himself as he walked past a fountain of the Tidemother, Leviathan herself. Her serpentine body wrapped itself around a pillar engraved in ancient Solheim text, her large fins simulating waves. Noctis translated the text in his head as the names of the Hexatheon: the six gods who were said to have given life to mankind eons ago. Water gushed out of the three spouts, creating beautiful arches around the towering Astral. “Has he even been to Altissia in this decade?” There were so many things outside of the Crown City that Noctis hadn’t experienced yet. So many places he hadn’t seen. People he hadn’t met. “Am I going to be stuck in the citadel all my life, like him?”

Shaking himself from these encroaching fears, Noctis left the fountain plaza and came across the gondola waterway that led to Arena Galviano. Noctis had only seen the Arena in a world geography book he had read to quell his boredom when he was recovering from the incident all those years ago. It was the largest, and only, gladiator arena he had ever seen.

**_Come one and all and experience the amazing Totomostro!!! PLACE YOUR BETS!!!_ **

Noctis heard the excited announcer and quickly decided to see what Totomostro was all about. He remembered that Ignis had told him a little bit about it before he left for his summer trip. Totomostro, as he remembered in Ignis’s posh accent, was a type of gladiator battle but instead of human gladiators, there were monsters brought in from all around Eos. Enthusiastic, and probably inebriated, people would place bets on which monster they thought would win in a battle to the death. It’s pretty gruesome watching raging Garulas rip apart tall Anaks before being annihilated by towering Treants. But people always love a good show.

Noctis put 50000 gil into one of the four monster teams on the board. He didn’t put too much weight into the amount of money he put in. He was the crown prince of Insomnia after all; money wasn’t something he ever had to worry about. He wasn’t entirely sure why he put any money in, except for Ignis’ advice,  “When in Altissia do as the Altissians do,” and how everyone in the arena was so happy.

Not just happy. Exuberated. Jovial. Ecstatic. Noctis could go on and on with synonyms that would never be able to fully capture the depth and complexity of it all. People were cheering louder than he ever thought possible. Children were running around with cactuar and moogle balloons, laughing like they had never laughed before. He had never experienced anything like this before. And didn’t think he ever would again.

“Noct!”

Noctis had just entered the main hallway leading to the colosseum proper when he heard this familiar-sounding voice. Blond, coiffed hair became visible to him, making its way through the crowd. The audience made a loud roar. Some monster just won. It was almost time for Noctis’ monster’s turn in the ring. But he didn’t notice that right away as he came face to face with those eyes.

“Noct! I decided on your nickname!” Prompto exclaimed when he finally caught up to Noctis, having to push past quite a few drunk arena-goers. He gestured with his hands for Noctis to do a sideways high-five, followed with a fist bump. Like how “bros” greet other “bros.”  Noctis, however, didn’t get the memo and awkwardly shook his hand. Awkward in the fact that the way their wrists twisted was not comfortable at all and that it was not what Prompto or any other self-respecting “bro” would have done. In this situation… in any situation.

He was, in a word, a disaster.

“Dude!” Prompto laughed so hard that he had to bend over to catch his breath. “You’re supposed to slap my hand with a high-five, or would we call it a side-five? We can talk about it later. And then you’re supposed to fist bump!” He explained before taking Noctis’ hand and acting out the proper way to greet a “bro.”

“I have never seen this in my life,” Noctis replied matter-of-factly, relishing inside in this new way to greet friends.

“Wait, seriously dude? That’s wild! Did you grow up under the Rock of Ravatogh or something?” Prompto spun around, laughing.

“I’m serious! And I did not grow up under the Rock of Ravatogh.” Noctis replied, laughing along with Prompto. “But how did you find me? There are a lot of people here.” He gestured to the crowd that was still growing around them.

“Well, I’m not stalking you, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Prompto said back. “I always come to play Totomostro after work on Fridays. And you’re pretty easy to spot.”

“What is that supposed to mean, Prompto?”

“Well, first I’m so excited you remembered my name!” Prompto did a little jump for joy. “And second, you’re probably the only one in all of Altissia dressed in all black.”

He gestured emphatically at Noctis’ attire. Black denim jacket with literal skull buttons, over a dark gray shirt with, once again, literal skull prints. Black pants that didn’t even reach his ankles, black buckled boots, and, wait for it, a black leather glovelet on his left hand.

“Like would it kill you to wear more, you know, colors?” Prompto asked as they found two empty seats. Nobody ever really ended up sitting in the arena though. If you’re sitting, you’re not standing, and if you’re not standing, you’re missing out on monster bloodshed.  And who wouldn’t want to see sabertusks rip each other’s tusks out?

“You’re one to talk.” Noctis retorted. He pointed up and down Prompto’s body. “You’re wearing a black vest, black gloves, a black shirt with some white, black pants. And are those literally leopard prints? And black boots too.”

“But you see, dear Noct,” Prompto said, scooting forward in his seat in anticipation for the match to begin. “I don’t always wear black on black on black. But you almost always wear black. Like I cannot tell you the last time I saw you come into the cafe not wearing black.” People began to file into their row with drinks and food. “Wait, let me guess.” He turned closer to Noctis. “You either only have one pair of clothes that you wash every night or, even worse, never wash. OR!” He jumped up in excitement. Noctis instinctively leaned forward to catch him if he were to fall. “You have like multiple pairs of these same clothes just hanging in your closet. Like different copies of this same exact outfit for the entire week!”

“You’re ridiculous.” Noctis laughed. “I have other clothes. I guess I just really like these ones?”

“Hmmmmm. Well, you have to wear something brighter some day. Please tell me you don’t just have black, gray, and/or white clothes. That would be so depressing.”

“I have colorful clothes… I think?”

“Well, if you don’t, I’ll take you to my favorite thrift store here in Altissia.”

“Sounds good.” Noctis wondered if people who had just met someone ever really offered to bring someone they barely knew out to go shopping. Sure, it was Altissia and all with its air of hospitality and sunshine but this was a bit much… But he wasn't entirely sure.

**_Our monsters are about ready to rumble! Booths will close in one minute!_ **

**_PLACE YOUR BETS!_ **

“So, which monster did you bet on?” Prompto asked. He had calmed down pretty quickly from attacking Noctis’ choice of clothes.

“Umm, let me check again.” Noctis reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a slightly crumpled slip of paper. “Team Blaster Bro? I honestly have no idea what that’s supposed to mean though. I kinda just picked it because I liked the name.”

“Well good thing I’m here. I’m your Totomostro expert. A Totomostro extraordinaire, if you will.” Prompto grabbed Noctis’ slip. “Alright, the ‘Blaster Bros’ are actually Coeurl’s and they’re pretty solid here, blasting everybody with their lasers.” He made laser noises and guns with his hands. Noctis laughed with him. “I’m not sure why they give the monsters weird team names though, like Blaster Bros and Ravatogh Runners. Like all I really need to know is how hard my Wyverns are going to whoop your overgrown cat’s butt.”

“Did you just say that you think you’re going to beat me?” Noctis asked, pushing Prompto’s shoulder. It was slightly more defined than what he imagined it would be.

“You know it, dude. Your Coeurl might be able to shoot laser beams out of its long whiskers but my wyverns shoot fire and fly around and are LITERAL DRAGONS.” Prompto made giant wings with his arms, elevating himself a little over Noctis which was easy;. Prompto was only an inch or half an inch shorter than Noctis on a good day. “Have you ever heard of a lion-tiger test tube mistake ever beating a freaking dragon? What guards the princess’s tower? Not a cat. A dragon!”  
“Well, you make some, not-so compelling points, Prompto. But you’re forgetting the most important part.” Noctis started.

“And what’s that, my dude?”

**_Now entering the arena: Blaster Bro, Ravatogh Runners, and Spiny Speedsters! May the best monster win!_ **

“The princess always gets saved, the dragon always dies, and… uh… cats are cool?”

Prompto turned to look at Noctis and they both broke out laughing. Then came the screaming. Monsters are wild.

* * *

“That. Was. So. Rigged!” Prompto exclaimed as he and Noctis walked out of the arena. “How does a tiny cactus with arms that dances around like a two-year child on methamphetamine beat three dragons that can breathe literal fire and brimstone and a laser cat with lasers?!”

During the match, the three wyverns (that Prompto had affectionately named Blossom, Buttercup, and Bubbles because girl-power?) and the coeurl (that Noctis felt obligated to name, so he named it Kat with a K) had immediately gone after each other. The coeurl kept shooting its lightning laser beams at the flying lizards and the lizard bat things shot fire at the electric feline. However, the ferocious monsters failed to remember the third combatant, the cactuar, who from the sidelines, kept shooting thousands upon thousands of tiny needles all around the arena. Not even the constant barrage of lightning and fire and brimstone and whatever else dragons use to keep princesses locked up in towers could stop the whirlwind of needles. In almost no time at all, the big cat and dragons lay dead on the ground while the cactus danced victoriously over their cold dead carcasses.

“Simmer down, Blondie,” Noctis said, patting his newfound friend on the shoulders. “I don’t think the monsters really cared about who bet on them so it can’t be rigged, right?”

“Oh contraire, my dark-haired friend. That’s what they want you to think!” Prompto laughed before he jumped on the nearest bench. “They must have rigged it somehow. I don’t know how but I will find out! Or my name isn’t Prompto ‘Detective Extraordinaire’ Argentum!”

Noctis laughed as they continued down the street. Prompto walked on top of the cobblestone ledges and wooden benches, jumping to avoid gaps.

While they were in the arena, the sun had said goodbye to Eos and the moon had taken her rightful place in the night sky. Lanterns had turned on, the hanging lights on the trees growing brighter and brighter. The stars in the sky, tiny universes of possibility, reflected on the gondola waterways. A perfect Altissian night. One Noctis had only seen in photographs and picture frames before that summer.

“Oh, you might want this back,” Prompto said before jumping down from the bench and landing right in front of Noctis. Their faces were extremely close. So close, in fact, that if Noctis would have been even an inch closer, their lips would have touched.

“Here you go.” Prompto reached into his pocket and took out Noctis’s Totomostro receipt. “I know we lost but like, I like to keep mementos of things I do and put them in scrapbooks and stuff. So I didn’t know if you wanted it back or not.”

“Oh, I actually forgot about it,” Noctis replied. Noctis took the receipt and put it back into his own jacket pocket, not knowing what he would even do with it. They continued on their way towards the main gondola station, walking side-by-side. Their steps fell into the same rhythm almost immediately, and their arms swayed back and forth at the same speed, their hands mere inches apart. Just by looking at this mismatched duo, no one would have guessed they had really only just met that day.

“You know, I thought I recognized you when you came in the first day, Noct.” Prompto started after they boarded one of the many gondolas. The waters were only lit by streetlights and the moon with its retinue of stars, making small pockets of reflections on the glassy black water. Noctis had never seen so many stars back in Insomnia.

“What do you mean?” Noctis asked. He had been alternating from studying Prompto’s mannerisms, like how he stretched his arms behind him and patted the side of the gondola to a somewhat familiar rhythm, and from gazing at the reflections of the city on the black waters. Noctis leaned over the side of the gondola and placed his hand in the water, creating ripples in the reflections.

“You didn’t tell me you’re THE Noctis Lucis Caelum.”

“What?” Noctis came up abruptly, quickly shaking off his wet hand. “How did you-”

The receipt. It had his name on it. His full name. His princely name. Noctis, for night. Lucis, for light. Caelum, for heaven. He had been trying to keep it a secret, not telling anyone his full name. Up until that point, the only people who definitely knew who he was were Weskham, his father’s family friend who was putting him up for the summer, and Camelia Claustra, the first secretary of Accordo, and, the kiosk machine from the arena. But Noctis could only run from his name for so long. And his time had run out.

“It was on your receipt from the game, my dude.” Prompto laughed. “You’d think I would have recognized you earlier though. You’re kinda a celebrity.” He looked up at Noctis and saw his newfound friend’s face saddening by the millisecond. “Bro, what’s wrong?”

Noctis looked up at Prompto, his dark blue eyes much darker than they were before. He was taking a while to come up with an answer.

He wasn’t okay. There was something wrong. But Noctis didn’t want to tell Prompto everything, or really anything. He had only just met this guy. How could Noctis tell this complete stranger everything that had compounded on itself in just nineteen, almost twenty, years? How could he open himself like the books and music that were his only real friends in his youth? How could he do this?

“Think fast!” Prompto exclaimed. He put his hand over the side of the gondola and splashed water at Noctis. Noctis was so lost in thought that he wasn’t fast enough to dodge the onslaught and got soaked.

“What was that for?” Noctis exclaimed, briefly pausing his inner turmoil. He looked down at his now drenched pants and laughed.

“You got sad and I didn’t like it.” Prompto smiled. “But like, dude, what’s wrong? You can tell me. Or not. Whatever you wanna do.” Prompto looked around, noticing how slowly all the gondolas were going. Slower than usual. There was probably a school of fish taking its sweet time swimming through the water which happened more often that one would expect or like. “We’ll probably be here a while.”

“Well,” Noctis gulped. Was he about tell Prompto everything? About his life?  He took a breath. “I’m the ‘crown prince of Insomnia, sole heir to the Insomnia throne and continuance of the Lucian bloodline’,” Noctis made sure to make actual air quotes. “And well…” Noctis trailed off and looked out into the black water. He couldn’t tell Prompto “everything.” He never told anyone everything, not even his only three close friends he had known for years. “Growing up as a prince you quickly learn that people become your friends for your crown or your dad or your money or all of the above. Never for you.”

He sighed and took another breath. He slowly leaned out of the gondola, staring off into the black sky. “I don’t really have many friends because of it. And I can literally, and I do mean literally like the definition of the word literally, count the number of actual friends I have on one hand.” He held up his right hand and recounted his friends in his head. Ignis. Gladio. Luna.

“Dang, dude,” Prompto replied before reaching across the gondola and placing his hand on Noctis’s knee. Noctis turned back to look at him and saw Prompto’s kind smile. “For the record, Noct, I became your friend not because you’re a prince. But because I always wondered what could be going on in someone’s head for them to get the same crazy complicated iced coffee every day for like two weeks. Like, bro, that’s crazy.”

Noctis stared back into Prompto’s eyes, trying to hold back whatever emotion was growing all throughout his body.  Was it the sadness of the uninvited memories slowly creeping up to the surface? Was it happiness that Prompto had said such kind words? Was it annoyance at the fact that the gondola couldn’t be going any slower than it was? Noctis tried to still the growing tempest of feelings and could only muster out, “Thanks.”

“No need to thank me, my dude.” Prompto laughed, leaning back onto the side of the gondola. “Just, you should probably cool it on the crazy drink orders or I might have to revoke my friendship card.”

“Wanna know what’s even crazier than my large iced coffee, soy milk, two pumps of caramel sweetener, one of vanilla, light ice?” Noctis asked, scooting a bit closer to Prompto, their faces getting dangerously close to one another.

“What?” Prompto asked, inching just a bit closer to Noctis.

“This.” Noctis quickly reached over the side of the gondola and splashed water towards Prompto. He deftly dodged the small deluge and the water instead hit the gondolier in the back of the head.

“Sorry!” Noctis yelped to Prompto’s uncontrollable laughter. Noctis soon joined in the laughter and the gondolier shook his head, hiding the slightest of smiles.

“Let’s keep our hands inside the gondola from now on. Don’t want them to be bitten off.” The gondolier said, his wry smile unseen by the two.

A comfortable silence fell on the gondola, enveloping the two former strangers in a blanket of ease. The gondolier began humming a familiar tune and Noctis sighed. He recalled fragmented images of his mother and father softly singing this song to calm him down after he could swear he saw daemons hiding in his closet. He could still remember the faint smell of the daisies, her favorite flower, that he placed on the casket to this song being played by a solo pianist.

“Prompto,” Noctis started, looking out amongst the water, trying to push the last memory from his mind. The gondola was almost at the Palsino Street station, his stop. “I have to ask you something.”

“What’s that?” Prompto sat up, returning Noctis’ gaze.

“Why did you really come up to me in the arena? I have to ask like was it because you knew who I was? You said you thought you recognized me from before the cafe. And I’ve had to deal with a lot of fake people in my life and I just need to know now. I know you said it was about the drink but I-”

“You don’t trust me?”

“It’s not that I don’t trust you, Prompto. I just don’t really know you yet. Not really. And I think you probably know a lot more about me and I just don’t know, you know?”

“You said 'know', like ten times in your last breath, by the way.” Noctis laughed at that. “But I get it, I think,” Prompto started again.  “I’m not gonna lie I recognized you and, on top of me, as a barista, wanting to know more about your crazy drink order, I think a part of me wanted to be able to say to myself that I actually talked to you, the ‘Crown Prince of Insomnia, sole heir to the Insomnia throne and continuance of the Lucian bloodline.’” Prompto made remarkably similar air quotes to imitate Noctis.

Noctis sighed at that, dropping a little. The lights seemed to dim and the water grew blacker and blacker. The stars and moon were being swallowed by this ever-growing blackness. If he fell in, he could fall all the way down, never to be seen again.

“Whoa there, Noct. Don’t sigh. I specifically put air quotes to try to get you to smile!” He playfully shoved Noctis’s shoulder to try to garner any semblance of a smile, but the only thing that came out of Noctis’s mouth was another sigh, quieter and even more hopeless than before.

Nevertheless, Prompto trudged on.

“But the main reason I came up to you was that you seemed like a cool guy every time you came into the cafe. You didn’t act like I thought a prince would, you know conceited and stuff, although I guess I’ve never met royalty before unless you count someone dressed up as Malboro Buddy,” Noctis laughed. “And... I just wanted to know who you actually were. In the end, I don’t really care about the fact you’re a prince. I’m just glad you’re not like an ax murderer or something. You know, axes have families and lives too so if you murder one, there are consequences that most people don’t think about. No baby ax should have to live knowing that there might be a murderer lurking around the corner, coming for it, its parents and everyone it knows and loves.”

The axes got Noctis to finally let out a tiny smile. The tear that was instinctively growing in his right eye started to disappear as well.

“And of course, we only just really met today,” Prompto finished, “But I’m glad we got to know each other, and you’re like really cool and stuff. And by the way, you can exhale now.”

Noctis let out a large breath. His heartbeat returned to its normal speed. “Wow, I didn’t realize I was kinda holding my breath there.”

“Well, it’s great to know that I take your breath away.” Noctis squinted at Prompto, unsure why that sounded the way it did. Didn’t people usually only say that about people they have feelings for? Or was this just another social cue in which Noctis was not privy. “And I’m glad you can breathe properly, Your Highness. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if you like suffocated right here.”

“Oooo, yeah I don’t like that nickname. At all. But thank you.” Noctis looked back at the water and its blackness became just a little brighter. Maybe the moon and the stars hadn’t gone away for good.

“Okay…” Prompto replied. “So I have Noct, and no ‘Your Highness’. And I’m going to assume ‘Your Majesty’ and ‘Your Princeliness’ are also out of the question. So I’ll just have to come up with at least one more.”

“Well, then I’ll just have to come up with one more for you too.”

“So, what I’m hearing is that we’re going to be hanging out again.” Prompto pointed out.

“Why wouldn’t we?” Noctis asked, “Isn’t that what people do?”

“Well, that’s what normal people do but normal people don’t sigh as much as you do when they’re in front of someone as amazing as me, and also you ARE a prince so....”

“Oh yeah, I’m a prince. So I’m better than the normal person.”

“Touche, Luci.”

“Did you just call me Luci?”

“Yeah, because your middle name is Lucis?”

“Try again.”

The gondola docked into the station, rattling the boys. The gondolier finished his vast repertoire of humming tunes and began his routine for his end of the night procedures. This was the last boat for the evening and he seemed eager to go home. Hopefully not to murder axes as Prompto might have assumed.

“Okay how about this,” Prompto started after putting a couple of gil into the tip jar. Noctis did the same but with about ten times the amount. He was a prince after all. The gondolier tipped his head in thanks, secretly disappointed he wouldn’t be able to eavesdrop on their conversation anymore that night. They made an interesting duo.

“Saturday is my day off from the cafe and I’m going to be heading to the islands off the coast to take some pictures.” He patted the camera hanging on his side. Noctis realized he hadn’t fully registered that Prompto had been taking pictures the entire night; he would have to be much more attentive from here on out. “And I would love to have a co-captain on the way over and just some company that aren’t my younger sisters who only want to dance to that one Taylor Swift song.”

Noctis laughed when he pictured Prompto trying to take pictures of some type of tree while his sisters, who no doubt had blonde hair like him, ignored him and danced around to award-winning singer, songwriter, actress, philanthropist, all-around-amazing human being Taylor Swift.

“What’s the song? Shake it Off? Me! maybe? I don’t know. They even bring their own waterproof speaker and everything. They’re honestly so extra.”

“I’d love to, Prom.”

“Ooo, I like that one. You’re a quick one there, Noctolini” Noctis shook his head tersely which made Prompto laugh. “Alright, just going to draw a big red line through that one.” Prompto drew a line in the air, with a flourishing checkmark at the end. “I’ll get you one soon, I promise.” Prompto high-fived Noctis and he actually caught the cue and did it back. Palm on palm and everything; no hand-shaking at all. “Okay so this is the plan: I’ll come up with another rocking nickname for you by Saturday, that gives me two days even though you only needed like what? Ten minutes?”

“In your defense,” Noctis butted in. “Prom is just a shortened version of your name like Noct, which is a pretty great nickname, by the way, is just shortened version of my name.”

“You do know how to make a guy feel smart, don’t you?” Prompto winked at Noctis, prompting a weird warm feeling to bubble at the base of his stomach. “Anyway,” Prompto trudged on, walking backward to face Noctis. “We’ll both have two nicknames for each other. Then let’s meet outside the cafe and then we can head out and have the best day getting pictures and hopefully we’ll even see it.”

“See what?”

“That’s a surprise, my dude.”

“I hate surprises. The last time I was surprised I ended up almost falling off a balcony.”

“Ooo, save that story for Saturday!”

“Alright, Blondie. Sounds good.” They both laughed, continuing along the sidewalk. They passed food carts and thrift stores closing up for the night and kids running around their parents on their way home. Lights twinkled along balconies, giving the streetside flowers a dim yet luminous glow. Something about Altissia at night made both of them sigh in contentment.

“Well, this is me,” Noctis said outside of Maagho, the star restaurant of Altissia. It’s known far and wide as the most prestigious restaurant in all of Eos. Its signature dish, Fine Caviar Canape, is the most expensive dish in all of Eos, clocking in at 300,000 gil.  

Noctis had only ever had it once when Weskham had visited Insomnia for the funeral. It didn’t taste as good as it should have.

“Well, of course, a prince would live in the bougiest restaurant in the whole world.”

“The owner, Weskham, is friends with my dad and offered to take me in. Because if not, I would have stayed at the Leville.”

“Ahh, so you had to choose between either the bougiest restaurant in the world or the bougiest hotel in the world. You really were stuck between Ifrit and the Starscourge.”

“You really know your Cosmogony.”

“I can tell you more about it this weekend if you’d like, Nocty-Wocty.”

“Prom, you’re really bad at this nickname thing.”

“Just watch,” Prompto scooted in front of Noctis and held open the door. “By Saturday, I’ll have a nickname that will knock your black boots off. And hopefully, get you to get out of these black clothes.” He pulled on Noctis’s shirt playfully. “You’re like a walking phantom.”

“I don’t even know how to respond to that,” Noctis replied. He wasn't sure how he felt about Prompto pulling on his shirt so close to his skin. But he also wasn't sure if he didn't like it. 

“I leave a lot of people speechless. Get used to it. I’ll probably leave you at a loss for words all day on Saturday.” Prompto winked, which Noctis found… interesting. This was the second time he had winked that night. But maybe it was just an Altissian thing. And it's not like he didn't  _not_ like it. 

Noctis walked in through the open door. “I’ll be waiting.” He and Prompto shakily tried to do a cool bro handshake but Noctis fumbled. Prompto laughed. “See you on Saturday! And get better at your bro handshakes! Bro-shakes? Brakes? Anyway, see ya!”

As Prompto walked away, Noctis couldn’t help but feel just a tad bit emptier. Like a blond, blue-eyed hole that he didn’t know could exist in his chest had just been created. And needed to be filled as soon as possible.

* * *

“By the way Weskham, I’m going to be out all Saturday. So I don’t think I’ll be able to help out in the restaurant if that’s alright.”

“Finally found some friends here in Altissia?” Weskham replied from the kitchen where he was more likely than not whipping up some new dish he was going to try to sell to the imposter and pretentious connoisseurs that frequented Maagho. Most people who came in probably couldn’t tell a two hundred bottle of wine against a five dollar bottle of wine if it hit them in the face.“It’s fine. Business is going to be slow on Saturday. Apparently, Camelia is having a huge political talk with a whole banquet and everything. I would think you had to be there.”

“I wasn’t invited to that I don’t think… But, yeah I made a cool friend today. We’re going to the islands off the coast to take some nature pictures and stuff.”

“Sounds good, Prince.”

“Thanks, and please don’t call me Prince. It’s Noctis, or Noct, for short.”

“Alright, ‘Noctis’,” Weskham replied, emphasizing his name.

Noctis chuckled at that. “Good night.”

He walked into the guest room where he was staying and opened the blinds. He looked down to see Prompto sitting at a bench playing around with his camera, the street light above him illuminating his blond hair. He wondered which photos Prompto was tweaking or deleting. He thought about how great the day had turned out to be.

Maybe the summer wasn’t going to be so bad.

Noctis lied down on his bed and took out the carbuncle plushie from under his pillow. Its seafoam green coat worn away, its previously ruby red jewel, browner than anything, and the red stains still visible even after all those meticulous and painstaking cleanings.

“Hey, Carby. I made a friend today. A real friend. Right? It’s weird. But he’s so cool and funny and like, I don’t know. Having friends is weird, yeah?”

Carby didn’t say anything back. How could he? But he did look into Noctis’s eyes and brought him a sense of calm. He’s done this for Noctis’s entire life. Hidden in his room, away from everyone else.

“Good night, Carby. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Noctis put his plush friend away under his pillow and closed his eyes.

A light knock came at the door, followed by an envelope. Noctis stumbled out of bed to get it and noticed the Tenebrean Seal keeping it closed. It smelled of sylleblossoms and vanilla and his name was written in the most carefully scribed calligraphy he had ever seen.

It had to be from Luna.

He put it on his nightstand, deciding to read it tomorrow.  He hadn’t thought of Luna since their last correspondence almost a week ago. Wherever in Eos she was, she apparently didn’t get great cell service and handwriting letters were always their go to. Even when they were younger and Noctis had moved back to Insomnia from staying at her home of Tenebrae for almost a year. Handwritten letters and notebooks carried across oceans were just their thing.

* * *

Sky-blue eyes and blond hair flashed into his dreams. He reached out to them, wanting nothing more to than hold them in this arm. They ran away into the infinite white space. He followed them around and around, passing newly appearing and disjoined buildings, jumping from bridge to bridge. Noctis followed them down a twisting corridor where two dogs, one black and one white were sleeping. He jumped over their sleeping bodies and finally caught up to the person he was chasing. He was ready to embrace them with all of his might.

He turned them around.

It wasn’t Luna, his girlfriend.

He would recognize these blue eyes forever.

Noctis woke up, sweating. He turned to see the envelope, barely illuminated by a sliver of moonlight.

“Crap.”

 

 

 


	2. How to Burn and Freeze Killer Wasps, A New Recipeh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in posting this! I've had it written for a while but I really needed to edit it (I had "sayid" instead of said and one point so let's all just be glad that I decide to edit before posting lmao.) And I was also in the throes of one of my last midterm seasons as a college student! WOOOOOOO!!!!! Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter!
> 
> (Also, if you ever come across mistakes, PLEASE MESSAGE ME. I'm a quick typer but often miss letters or forget words and they're so subtle I don't even notice them so rip.)

Chapter 02

 

_My Dearest Noctis,_

_I pray that you are faring well in Altissia. From my own experience, I know it treats every single person as a local, like royalty. Ironic is it not? I have only fond memories of my time abroad there, learning about its religions and customs in the nation itself.  I hope you might be doing the same although I know that you might not. Spirituality was never quite your area of interest. I cannot foresee it changing anytime soon._

_Remind me to thank your father for so vehemently “suggesting” that you spend your summer before your first year at university there. I know you did not exactly wish to leave Insomnia, specifically because your father was the one who told you to do so, but I know that Altissia is precisely what you need. By the grace of the Astrals, I hope you have not had too much of a culture shock. I know how resigned you have been in the past, especially in a city as brutal as Insomnia, stuck in the citadel or your apartment. Altissia is much more vibrant and easygoing in almost every way and I hope that you have made at least one friend._

_Perhaps you might find some fun and that one friend at Totomostro, although I would not advise wagering too much money on a single game. The games, albeit not rigged, are sometimes quite difficult. Always bet on the Spiny Speedsters though. The Cactuar’s 1000 needles are nothing to overlook. It's appalling how deadly those small creatures are._

_I would hope you don’t have to learn that the more difficult way like my brother Ravus did_

“Of course, Luna would send this letter a day too late,” Noctis chuckled to himself, sipping on his iced coffee outside the cafe. It was Saturday and he was waiting for Prompto to show up. He wasn’t able to read the letter yesterday as it turned out, Camelia Claustra did not end up needing Noctis’s help with the political event that he had no interest in. It was by the grace of Leviathan herself that he was able to squirm his way out of having to attend. Also, a lot of empty promises on his part.

He continued to read the letter, subtly glaring at a girl carrying a blue Cactuar plush. “God, I hate cactuars.”

_Galahd is quite different than any place I have been before. It is rather refreshing. Tenebrae has a lot of green and blue, but Galahd is just so, natural. In a way that I have never experienced. I swam in a waterfall last week and it was so enlightening and cleansing. I’ve never felt so one with nature. If you ever make it out to Galahd, you must try it._

_That reminds me. I was speaking to my local guide here, Nyx Ulric, and he told me that the people of Galahd would love to finally meet someone from the Lucian royal family. Perhaps, once you have graduated university you could go on a trip here as you have in Altissia. I believe I will be leaving Galahd in the next few days to accompany Nyx on a trip of my own from this trip so I hope you receive this letter and can return it before I must depart._

_Now I have some questions for you:_

_Have you made friends yet?  As I mentioned previously, if you might at least one good friend, I will be elated._

_Have you tried some of Altissia’s more unique foods?  I do miss Weskham's culinary prowess, especially that Fine Caviar Canape, even if the masses cannot fathom its price. Perhaps you could persuade Weskham to reduce the price to make it more accessible to all? But I digress._

_Have you talked to your father recently? I know he doesn't show it as most fathers do, but he misses you. And I do not believe that I would be out of place, But I know that you miss him as well, even if you do not want to admit it._

_Have you gotten out of those stark black clothes you so stubbornly adorn every day? Perhaps you could go to one of Altissia's famed seamstresses and get a new wardrobe of a more inviting palette._

_I pray that you have a wonderful time in Altissia, although I know you will. Perhaps a little bit of sun, an ocean breeze, and Altissian hospitality might do you some good._

_Yours Truly,_

_Luna_  
  


Luna’s handwriting had always moved Noctis. The way her "y"’s and "g"’s had that curve to their dropping stem, how she wrote his name, unlike anyone he had ever met. How her capital "L" was such an extravagant cursive "L" while her other letters were such flowingly exquisite print. A unique and captivating in between cursive and print that was neither inaccessible to the less literarily inclined nor juvenile to those more educated than her, which were far and few between. No wonder she was the chosen Oracle, the heavenly messenger, and ambassador to the Astrals.  Even if the particulars of her annoitnment had been more or less lost to time and progress away from spirituality and to technology and science. Noctis had and probably would never meet anyone as perfect as her.

Noctis opened the envelope to put the letter away when he noticed a flash of blue peeking out. He found a small sylleblossom, its blue petals radiant in the Altissian sunlight. He held the flower up to the morning sun, allowing all the petals to receive the light.

“You know Noctis, the sylleblossom blooms in adversity,” a young Luna once told a wheelchair-bound Noctis, pushing him through the blue fields. Sylleblossoms that went on for miles and miles surrounded them on both sides. A sprawling ocean, bluer than any body of water he had ever seen before.

“What’s that supposed to mean, Luna?” Noctis asked, looking around the field, wishing he could walk through it with his own legs. Wishing he could pick one of the thousands of flowers himself. Wishing for so much.

“It means you can always find them, in any weather, in any place. In the darkest of nights, and the brightest of days.” Luna bent down and picked up a single flower that had fallen off its plant. “They’ll always be there, even in the bleakest of circumstances. Even if everything in the entire world is working against them. They'll always be there.” She handed Noctis the flower, closing her hand over his. “And remember," She looked up at Noctis, the light blue in her eyes shining against her warm, closed-lip smile. "I’ll always be there for you, too.”

“You’ll always be there for me?” Noctis began to tear up and held even harder onto the flower. He came very close to crushing it, his gratitude and frustration melding together in ways he did not fully comprehend. It was exactly what he needed to hear.

Luna knelt down, put her hands over Noctis’s again and looked directly into his eyes. Her light blue eyes melted with his and created a shade of blue that he had never seen before. “Of course, Noctis. As long as you remember that you also bloom in adversity.”

Noctis didn’t notice it then: How Luna’s eyes seemed even more beautiful alongside the sprawling ocean of blossoms.

“Hey, Nocto, Prince, Noct. Are you rea-”

Noctis tore himself away from the flower, jarred by the voice coming from his right. He hadn't even noticed the single tear that was growing in his eye. He usually didn’t show emotions so readily on his face. He wasn’t supposed to, especially not in public. Both because he was supposed to be a man like what society had dictated for so long and the fact that someone of his royal caliber was supposed to be dignified and be the champion of stoicism and strength for all of Insomnia, nay, Lucis to aspire to! At least that's what had been so ingrained into his head for the past nineteen, going on twenty years of life.

“Are you okay, Noct, Prince, Nocto?” Prompto asked before sitting down next to Noct on the bench, his hair softly blowing in the Altissian sea breeze.

“Yeah, sorry Blondie,” Noctis replied, wiping away the budding tear as inconspicuous as he could. “I’m rea- wait is ‘Nocto’ the nickname you came up with?”

“Oh yeah!” Prompto exclaimed before jumping up from the bench. “I came up with Nocto because like I was watching this anime last night with my brother and he refuses to watch anything dubbed, which I guess I get, and they ended with the O sound on lots of names that should probably end with T and it fits I think.”

“It’s not the worst name you could have come up with” Noctis replied after putting away Luna’s letter. "But I think I like Noct, better."

“Well, you can't blame a guy for trying. I guess just two nicknames for my amazingggg name and just one for your plain as- oh is that a sylleblossom?” Prompto interrupted himself, going in to reach for it.

“You know them?” Noctis asked in reply before gingerly holding it out to Prompto. “They’re from-”

“Tenebrae. Usually only found on the cliffs overlooking the Tenebraen-Lucian sea but they have been known to grow in some intense climates. And wow! They're so much more beautiful in real life!” Prompto pulled out his camera from his messenger bag and took a number of pictures. “Could you move your hand this way?” Prompto asked before moving Noctis’s hands for the perfect pose.

"You sure know a lot about sylleblossoms," Noctis replied while moving the flower over and over to help "frame its unparalleled majesty in the most flattering angle of the warm Altissian sun". He didn’t complain like he would have if Ignis or Gladio would have asked him to do this. Not like those two would ever have put him in this kind of situation. This summer was turning into a lot of firsts and Noctis could feel it then, that there would be a whole lot more to come.

“Of course I’m going to know about where some of the bluest and most famous, and now I do so declare, most beautiful flowers ever come from!” Prompto exclaimed while checking his camera. “I’m planning on going to college for photography so I have to know where to get the best pictures ever. I’ve always wanted to see a sylleblossom in real life. I’ve only ever seen them in nature books I’ve checked out from the library.”

“Maybe we can go to Tenebrae together some time then,” Noctis replied as they began to walk towards the marina. “There are fields full of them. All you see is blue, for miles and miles. It’s like another ocean. There are even waves when the breeze hits the flowers at the right angle.” Noctis said all of this while gesturing the grandness of the fields and the waves of petals. “It’s one of my favorite places.” He looked at the flower still in his hand. “It’s where I was right then when you came up to me.”

“Dang, it sounds super special, buddy,” Prompto said, putting his hand on Noctis’s shoulder. Noctis tensed up ever so slightly. “It would be amazing to go there. It’s been my dream to go since I first saw them in the book.” Prompto looked at his King’s Knight watch and gasped at the time. “Oh shoot! We have to go if we want a chance to catch it!”

“See wha- ah!”

Prompto grabbed Noctis’s unsuspecting hand and whisked him down towards the docks. Noct barely had enough reaction time to put the sylleblossom in his jacket pocket with the letter before being completely sucked into the blond hurricane.  
  


* * *

“And away we go!” Prompto proclaimed before turning on the ignition. The motorboat sped off across the waves, creating huge ripples in the once still water. Noctis slowly stumbled his way towards Prompto while trying not to fall off the side of the boat. He could only imagine how embarrassing it would be if he fell into the water. And how much of a hassle that would be. And imagine the headlines: "Crown Princes falls off boat because he couldn't handle a couple of waves. How will he handle the throne?" He pushed those thoughts out of his head with every dip and crash of the boat against the uncharacteristically rocky waves. But, really, Noctis didn't know what was characteristic of the waves outside of Altissia's immediate surroundings, he barely knew what went on outside of his own city of Insomnia.

“Do you see it Noct?” Prompto asked, interrupting Noctis’s thoughts, and pointed towards a small island just coming up over the horizon. “That’s Lover’s Rock!”

“It’s what?” Noctis asked in shock. That was a name. A combination of two words he was in no way prepared to hear come out of Prompto's mouth, or anyone's mouth for that matter.

“It’s Lover’s Rock! Also known as the place where lovers go to, you know…” Noctis gulped, finishing Prompto’s sentence in his head. Prompto gave Noctis a sly wink. “Catch a glimpse of the elusive, maybe even mythical, but super beautiful and amazing, GOLDEN CHOCOBO!” Prompto laughed at his announcement that might have been meant to catch Noctis off guard. Or it might have just been Prompto, with his own Prompto sense of humor? "You should have seen your face!" Prompto almost doubled over in raucous laughter. If Prompto hadn't been the one who was captaining the boat and Noctis knew at least some kind of boating skills, Prompto would have been in the water in no time. By Noctis's hands of course. "I would hope that the future of all of Lucis wouldn't be that gullible!"

"You're dumb," Noctis replied, trying his best to mask his prior shock. He tried his best to regain control of his heartbeat and hands that had begun to slip out of his conscious control. "But I have two questions if you're done being dumb."

"Well, according to my twin sisters, my brother, and my parents when I'm being especially annoying, I'll never stop being dumb but go ahead."

“First, we’re going to try to see the Golden Chocobo? I’ve only heard of that in mythology books. Like does it even exist? And secondly, is it really called Lover’s Rock? Isn’t that kind of… sensual?”

“I’m not the best at math and might have failed calculus in high school but I’m pretty sure that was four questions there,” Prompto replied.  He then made a sharp turn, somehow throwing Noctis into the chair. If Prompto had turned the other way, Noctis would have totally have landed in Prompto's lap. Which would be... "Sorry about that, Noct. I didn’t see the rock there. I didn’t want to tell you before but this is actually my first time ever captaining a boat. And if I get so much as a scratch on ol' Miss Kendrick, my boss's brother's second wife's cousin's best friend's daughter's husband would have my head. On a platter. With a side of barnacles. And roast vegetables. Oops.”  
  
“So that was a lot to unpack and I feel like we should probably dive into that a little more, but- What?!?!” Noctis screamed to Prompto’s laughs.

“Anyway, I’ll answer your four questions even though you said you only had two.” He went to swerve again but stopped right before turning, just to see Noctis’s reaction. It elicited the one he wanted: pure terror, like Noctis's life flashed before his eyes. “Yes, we’re going to see the Golden Chocobo and yes it exists. I’ve seen it once before when I was little but I didn’t have a camera to document it. Maybe that's why I like photography so much? Like you'll have these permanent memories that people can't deny. Or maybe it's because I just like being able to do this-" Prompto deftly took a picture of Noctis gripping so hard onto his seat's armrests that his hands were a bright red.

"Hey! Isn't it against the law to take a picture of someone without their consent or something? And shouldn't you be focused on NOT KILLING US?!?!"

"Hey, I'm only answering the original two, now four questions, but I already answered one, so now it's three. Like I said, I'm not that good at math, and I'm even worser at English."

"Maybe your entire family was right about the whole never not being dumb thing."

"Moving on." Prompto smiled and jovially tapped his hands on the wheel. Yes, the island really is called Lover’s Rock. Cosmogony tells that Shiva and Ifrit used to hide away on this island from the other Astrals to be together, just the two of them. And it’s also said to be the last place they met before, you know, the war tore them apart forever. Pretty romantic, right?”

“Yeah, romantic…” Noctis rubbed the back of his head. “And tragic. Probably more tragic to me, to be honest.”

“I think that’s what makes it so beautiful. Don’t you think?” Prompto asked, docking the boat gracefully into a makeshift wooden dock. Clearly, not that many people trafficked this particular island. And if the two of them were attacked by say, Killer Wasps, which was a very very unlikely scenario given that these monstrous creatures that feed on human flesh and despair are native to Eastern Lucis, there would be no one to hear them scream. “They were star-crossed lovers, complete opposites, fire and ice. Brought together by love and torn apart by hate.”

Noct helped to secure the boat to the dock and assist Prompto off the boat. “I didn’t take you as a Cosmogony buff and a poet at that,” Noct told him once they were both safely on the sand.

“Did you think I was just a pretty face with the best camera skills ever? I’m _sophisticated_.” Prompto proceeded to walk towards the main island, trip on a rock, and almost faceplant into the sand. Noctis was quick on the draw and caught his hand.

“You were saying, Mr. Sophisticated?”

“There it is! I can’t believe it! Look how beautiful and golden and- oh my gods Noctis it’s looking this way! Get down!” Prompto pushed himself and the unsuspecting Noctis down behind a large bush.

Their faces were only inches apart. Close enough for Noctis to feel Prompto’s hurried breath. He swore he could feel his elevated heartbeat. It was just the two of them, close enough to touch, and hiding behind a bush. Noctis noticed how much Prompto’s eyes looked like Luna’s, how his dirty blond hair reminded him so much of Luna’s after the rain. Maybe that’s why he dreamt of the not-Luna, maybe Prompto, no, totally Prompto person that first night.

The golden chicken ostrich hybrid gave out a small screech, making Noctis shudder and almost squeal. Yes, squeal. Prompto reached over and put his hand over Noctis’s mouth. He gave a silent shush with his finger, and slowly peered his head over the bush. Noctis prayed that Prompto couldn't feel how fast his every neuron was firing all over his body. How the electrical currents reverberating and conducting in every single synapse were threatening to make him explode.

“So Prompto,” Noctis whispered once Prompto returned back behind the bush. “What are we waiting for?”

He asked this for two reasons: Firstly, to know why he was unceremoniously manhandled into hiding behind a bush and secondly, to get his mind off the fact that his own heartbeat was skyrocketing. Was it the fact that he was also excited to see a real-life golden Chocobo, or was it the way Prompto’s hurried breath felt on his skin?

“We’re waiting for that beautiful, no,  _legendary_ golden Chocobo to turn around and then we’re gonna-” Prompto stopped mid-sentence, brought his ear to the ground, and closed his eyes. He stayed in that position for what seemed like an eternity to the confused Noctis, moving only when he breathed, just barely.

“Now.” Prompto took off straight towards the unsuspecting Chocobo. He didn’t so much as look back at Noctis who he literally left in the dust. Noctis put his fist up to this mouth while he tried to cough out the dust particles that he had inadvertently inhaled.

“What are you doing?!” Noctis exclaimed as he fumbled to follow. As he made his pursuit, he looked around, squinting through the bright sun and into the trees. He saw what he thought were floating figures in the woods, and maybe long, sharp needles. It took him only a few moments to realize what the looming shadows were. Lost in that harrowing thought, he stopped paying attention to where he was running and fell right into Prompto.

“Whoa!” Prompto exclaimed as the momentum from the collision barreled him right into the overgrown chicken’s legs.

KWEH KWEH! The Chocobo squawked. The shriek rang throughout the clearing and shook all of the trees, some of their low-hanging fruit falling to the ground. Never underestimate a Chocobo’s screech. It sped off, leaving behind a singular, golden feather. Prompto scooped it up before it hit the ground and put it in his camera case. To the untrained eye, it looked like just a normal, yellow Chocobo feather but Prompto would go on to defend its color to those who would try to deny its authenticity.  

“Well, I didn’t get a picture of it because you totally ran into me,” Prompto started, dusting himself off. “But this feather is awesome so I guess we can call this excursion a success. Don’t you think, Noc-”

**BZZZZZ. BZZZZZ.**

Both of them turned around slowly towards the menacing buzzing. Slow and soft, and then all at once, fast and ear-crushing.

“Are those what I think they are?” Prompto gulped, his smile melting away.

“Yes,” Noctis quickly replied and grabbed Prompto’s hand. “And we have to go. Now!” They both ran as fast as they could towards the one opening of trees, Noctis refusing to let go of Prompto’s hand. It was warm and felt good in his hand. But he shook that thought away as the buzzing grew louder and louder. No time for overanalyzing how this soft yet strong hand felt in his when their literal lives depending on running away as fast as they humanly could.

Soon, a hopeless, pervasive buzzing emanated from the entire grove of trees. With Noctis leading the way, carefully careening the uneven grass and bumps, Prompto turned around to get a glimpse of their assailants. Their antenna resembled claws of terrifying stature, and their actual claws looked like scythes only Hades would use to take down a giant or even the Archaean, Titan himself. The creatures, with their high-frequency wing speed and sword-like stingers, were, in a word, demonic. In the terror, Prompto’s hand slipped out from Noctis’s and he soon started to fall a couple of paces behind his deceptively faster companion and fellow-Killer Wasp escapee.

“KILLER WASPS?! “ Noctis exclaimed, “This is crazy! Why are there Killer Wasps on this island? You didn’t tell me there would be ten-foot freaking bees!”

The actually twelve-foot insects began to pick up incredible speed, coming treacherously close to them.

“How was I supposed to know?!” Prompto cried out, desperately trying to keep up and hold onto his camera. “It’s called Lover’s Rock, not Killer Wasp Hive!”

"Didn't you say you've been here before?!"

"I said I've seen a Golden Chocobo before not been to this specific island before! Don't you listen?!"

“Don't I list- Oh, if these overgrown bees don’t kill us right now, I’m going to kill you myself!”

 **BZZZZ BZZZZ.** **BZZZZ BZZZZ.**

“Oh shut up, Noct! You know you lo- I can see the boat!” Prompto exclaimed, ignoring Noctis’s hollow threat.

“Watch the rock!” Noctis warned as he jumped over a substantial rock.

Prompto clumsily followed, clearly not fully listening to Noctis’s warning. He then proceeded to hit his foot on the top of the rock. He was barely able to catch himself and scrambled after Noctis who was already on the dock, clearly ready to get out of there. Prompto almost made it across the sand when he noticed that was something was missing, something important.

“Where’s my camera?!” He exclaimed, motioning around his waist, where his most prized possession used to be. Was supposed to be. He turned around, his eyes widening. “Oh no.” There was his camera, wedged in the sand, in front of the rock.

“Dang it,” Noctis said to himself, noting the distance between the dropped camera and the encroaching wasps. “Astrals give me strength.” He silently prayed.

“What am I going to do?!” Prompto cried helplessly as he watched the wasps draw nearer and nearer to his lonely camera.

“Get in the boat!” Noctis yelled. He closed his eyes, cursed to himself, and took a short, yet deep breath. He then sprinted at full speed towards the camera, his thoughts running wildly but not as fast as his feet. Maybe he wasn't even thinking.

“What are you doing?!”

“GET IN THE BOAT!” Noctis yelled, not turning back to make sure Prompto followed his order this time. He was almost to the camera when he looked up and almost screamed. No, he screamed. Like a baby. Which probably angered the wasps even more than they already were.

**BZZZZ BZZZZ. BZZZZ BZZZZ. BZZZZ BZZZZ.**

His heartbeat quickened. His mind raced. His hand shook. His body quaked. There they were. Four gigantic wasps, eyes redder than blood, wings bluer than corpses. Slowly, in unison, they raised their clawed stingers, aiming straight towards the tiny price. Their red eyes glowed with a blood red that sent a horrible shiver down Noctis's spine. In a matter of seconds, the insects would take their kill. And it would all be over.

Noctis’s head raced with thoughts of what his last day on Eos would have resembled. Dying on an island off the coast of Altissia trying to save a camera from Killer Wasps for a boy he barely knew that made him feel things so quickly and so different than he ever thought he could was not how he had ever imagined it to be. He did not know exactly how we would have wanted to leave this world for the next, if there truly was a next, but it wasn’t this. He was going to die there because a guy he just met wanted a picture of a freaking Chocobo. He didn’t even get the picture in the end anyway. Everything was about to be over. But hadn't he had wanted to this before? Hadn't he had fantasized what it would be like?

Noctis braced himself for the cold, sweet release of death and tried to stop all of those brutal thoughts from interfering. Maybe then he could finally be reunited with-

_  
“Clear your mind and focus your emotions.”_

Noctis looked around and found himself in a familiar room. Windows lined the wall, looking out over beautiful gardens, filled to the brim with a rainbow of flowers and extravagant fountains. He could barely make out the faint sounds of birds and the trickle of the fountain waters.

Luna was in front of him, her hand reaching out towards his heart. Her light blonde hair floated around her, creating a waterfall of blonde around her.

_“Take all of your fear and frustration, your anger and sadness. Let it freeze that which binds you, that which keeps you from moving forward. Create a snowfall, a raging blizzard. Then let it go. Watch as the frozen fractals all around you materialize. Only those  
who shed all emotional vice can harness the true power of freezing ice.”_

  
His heartbeat slowed. His mind cleared. His hands stopped. His body stilled.

A cool icy feeling crept from his core, chilling him to the bone. His fear of death, his anger at his father, his dream-like confusion, crept up from his heart, darkening his mind. Listening to his mother’s belabored breathing as the blood ran down her face all those years ago. Enduring his father’s harsh remarks for each and every one of his mistakes. Sitting alone everywhere he went, always afraid to open up to anyone. The way Prompto made him feel, confused and guilty, unsure of almost everything.

Ice. All of it. Turned to ice. A deep chill encased his heart in blinding white.  


“Freeze!” Noctis screamed.

Spears of ice shot from his hand. In an instant, the ground around him froze, creating sheets of ice all around him. The spears flew towards his insectoid attackers, piercing their winds and encasing their stingers in ice. Their eerie buzzing slowed as they recoiled in shock. Taking advantage of their momentary hesitation, Noctis grabbed the camera which had miraculously been spared from the flurry of diamond dust and raced off towards the boat.

“Prompto! Start the boat!” Noctis yelled as he neared the dock, taking care not to slip on his own frozen sand. He refused to turn around to witness the wasps recovering from the icy onslaught to resume their chase. If he didn't look back, then they weren't following him.

“Noct, jump!” Prompto yelled as Noctis reached the end of the dock, the wasps nearly catching up to him. With one flailing yet somehow still graceful leap, Noctis grasped the back rail of the boat. The rocking waves hit the bottom of his legs, stinging a cut on his ankle that he didn’t know he had received.

“Noct, behind you!” Prompto yelled after turning around to make sure Noctis was hanging on tightly.

Noctis turned to see one daring wasp dive for his dangling body, its melting ice-covered stinger poised to kill.

_  
“Open your heart once again and feel that which brightens you. Open your heart to happiness, to new experiences, to love. Let the fire ignite inside you. Let the inferno of light grow until nothing stands in its way. Only those with the brightest of hearts and stalwart desire can harness the power of burning fire."_

Accompanying his father to countless meetings, sitting on his lap, staring up in awe at the breaded man above him. Holding his mother’s hand while they walked around the city, greeting everyone they passed. Sparring with Gladiolus in the courtyard after one of Ignis’s many failed attempts to teach him how to cook. Listening to Luna read him stories of Eos’ creation while she wheeled him down corridors of her Tenebraen home. Watching Prompto take control of the boat, ebbing with the waves, the sea breeze blowing through his dirty blonde hair. Prompto’s smile breaking down the seemingly impenetrable wall he had built.

Fire. A burning sensation surrounded his heart with a deep, sizzling red.  


“Burn!” Noctis exclaimed.

A ball of fire blasted from his free hand and headed straight towards the sole bee. The world surrounding the boat erupted in a red only seen in the brightest of sunsets and the darkest of blood. The wasp shrieked, fire dancing around its now melting body. It released a dying, guttural sound as it tried to fly back to its brethren. The fire finally went out and all that remained was a curved stinger, free of any sign of ice, and the faint outline of a charred, blue wing. The rest of the wasps returned into the woods, now aware of the actual danger Noctis posed.

“A little help here?” Noctis asked, still dangling from the side of the moving boat, his clothes singed by stray embers.

Prompto left the captain seat to help his savior up to the deck. “Dude,” he started. Dusting off his charred clothes. “I bet you’re happy that you didn’t wear your usual black get up today. To be honest, I didn’t really believe you had anything besides black in your emo closet.”

“I’m not emo. Black is just the best and easiest color to wear,” Noctis laughed and looked down at his clothes. That morning he had consciously looked at his closet and tried his hardest to find something not black. After like thirty minutes of trying things on, he had gone with a light blue denim jacket, a plain white shirt, and dark gray jeans. He did it for Prompto, although he didn’t acknowledge that when Weskham had asked him why he didn’t look like he was attending his own funeral that morning. How ironic that comment was now.

But now he would probably have to buy new versions of his outfit as all three pieces looked like they just came out of a deep-fryer. Why had he even gone to the lengths to try to, what, impress Prompto?

“But, seriously dude,” Prompto resumed. “Why did you go back?! You could have died!”

“Well, what are friends for?” Noctis replied, removing the camera from around his neck. Through some divine intervention, maybe from the Tidemother herself, the camera escaped the onslaught of fire, ice, and wasp unharmed, save for a few drops of seawater.

Prompto grabbed Noctis and hugged him, taking his breath away. Literally, and much to Noctis’s chagrin, figuratively. Prompto spun Noctis around, laughing.

“Thank you thank you THANK YOU! You’re my hero!”

Noctis would have relished in the hug more if he wasn’t completely aware of the outline of Prompto’s arms and how they felt on his back. And the way Prompto’s blond hair felt rubbing against his own. And how his lower extremities were becoming just a bit, stiffer, throughout the embrace. This was not how this day was supposed to go. At all.

“I think I would have died without this,” Prompto said after letting Noctis down. “Like even if those Killer Wasps didn’t kill me, not having this would have. And I mean literally.” He caressed his camera, slowly. “I swear I could kiss you right now.”

“It was nothing,” Noctis said nonchalantly, rubbing the back of his neck. He was desperately trying not to reveal the fact that he would probably be the one to die if Prompto did kiss him. What was happening to him? “I also couldn’t leave here without physical proof that you’re probably the most dangerous and wildest person I’ve ever met.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?!” Prompto asked, playfully shoving Noctis’s shoulder.

Noctis chuckled, grateful that Prompto didn’t seem to notice how he moved his charred jacket to cover up his waist. That was not a conversation that Noctis wanted to have, not then, not ever.

“I just meant none of my other friends, except maybe Gladio after a few drinks, would ever get me chased by a swarm of ten-foot wasps.” He laughed a little when thinking of the few, well, three, not counting Prompto, friends he had made over the course of his almost twenty years. “And just-”

Noctis stopped mid-sentence to grab a hold of the back of the passenger seat. He could barely keep himself upright, and his breath became very rushed.

“Whoa, Noct, you alright?” Prompto put his hands on Noctis’s shoulder and helped lead him into the seat.

“I don’t think I’ve ever-” Noctis took a deep breath to try to compose himself. “-used that much magic in one go before. Especially not like that.” He looked at his hands which were still as soft as ever, even though his insides were currently on fire and frozen at the same time. 

“Oh god, you’re not going to, you know, die right? I don’t know how I would explain to your dad, the LITERAL King of Lucis, how I was personally responsible for your death. This pretty face can’t go to jail yet. I still have so many pictures to take!"

“You’re-” deep breath “-ridiculous-” another deep breath, followed by a long yawn. “-Camera. I just need to close my-” yawn. “-eyes and-” He slowly placed his head on Prompto’s shoulder who was now sitting at the captain’s seat. “Rest a bit.”

“Take a load off,” Prompto told the sleepy Noctis. “You _did_ single-handedly save our lives, my camera's life, and sacrifice a really nice jean jacket and… you’re asleep, aren’t you?”

Nocis nodded slightly, a smile creeping up as his head found the perfect spot between Prompto’s shoulder and neck. Like it was meant to be there. Noctis wouldn’t say it then, or anytime soon thereafter, but he felt more at peace with his head leaning on Prompto’s shoulder than he had in a long time. Even if he knew this was probably the worst place he could be.

* * *

 

  
“Dad! Dad!” A pre-adolescent Noctis burst into the dining hall a little too fast, almost knocking over a butler’s platter of food.

“Noctis. You almost ran into Jared and knocked him over, again. Apologize.” His father, King Regis scolded him.

“Sorry, Jared…” Noctis said, looking down in shame.

“That’s quite alright, Your Highness,” Jared replied, rubbing Noctis’s hair. “You were just excited.”

Noctis smiled at Jared’s kind words. Jared bowed to the King and took his leave, making sure to give Noctis a piece of fresh sweet bread.

“Dad, I finally did it!” Noctis began once he was seated at the table next to his father.

“And what is that, son?” Regis asked, with no indication of pride in his voice.

“I was finally able to cast fire and blizzard spells! I did exactly what Luna told me to do! I’m so glad she was able to come over Tenebrae this week. I missed her.” Noctis put his hands out, aiming towards the unlit candelabra on the long dining table. “She said all I have to do is think of my happiest memories and then I cast fire!” Noctis closed his eyes and tried to conjure his happiest memories. “Watch!”

“That’s enough Noctis,” his father said sternly. “I believe you. But you need to learn that all magic comes with a price. I’m sure Lunafreya told you that before your lesson.”

“Yeah…” Noctis lowered his head, averting eye contact with his father. “But it’s just so cool. Like I can make fire and ice come out of my hands! Like no one else I know can do that! Not even Luna, which is kinda weird because she is the one-”

“Noctis,” King Regis interrupted him. “I know I’ve told you this before but it seems I must again.” Regis sighed loudly. “Let me remind you how House Caelum and House Fleuret received the magic that our and Luna’s families can wield.”

“But Dad, I do remember this story!”

“You’ve heard the good parts, but not the whole story.”

Noctis grumbled a little bit, taking a bite out of Jared’s bread. "But I don't wanna-"

“A long time ago, the Astrals walked among men and women, of whom they had created in their image.” King Regis began. “For a long era of peace, mankind lived harmoniously with their creators, and their creators relished in their creations. However, The Hexatheon, the six Astrals who had breathed life into men, foresaw a great plague in the form of a meteor, the Starscourge-”

“And the Starscourge would make the night get longer every day for thousands of years until there would be no sun anywhere.” Noctis finished, annoyed. “Dad, I already know all of this. And next, you’re going to tell me that Titan caught the meteor and Ifrit decided to absorb all of the darkness to save the humans that he loved more than any of the other gods. Then the other five, except for Shiva, agreed to destroy him because of the darkness making him crazy and evil.”

“Noctis, do not interrupt me.” King Regis said sternly. He sighed, rubbing his temple. “But would you like to finish this part of the story, before I get to what I need you to learn?"

“Sorry, father…” Noctis looked down. “But I’ll finish it.” Noctis looked back up, trying to recall the many lessons that he had with his father, his servants, and even his mother, although those were much further in his memory. “Then Ifrit, crazy from the darkness inside of him, got the humans and monsters to fight the other Astrals. Shiva, his girlfriend, didn’t want to fight him but had to because she had been outvoted by the others and Ifrit was crazy by then. Then the Astral War happened and a lot of people died. And then Ifrit was cornered at the Rock of Ravatogh and the others took the Starscourge out of him, basically killing him, and Bahamut, the king of the Astrals, like shoved swords into it I think.”

“Bahamut, the Draconian, took the Starscourge and flew it into the outer reaches of space and cleaved it with his Ultima Sword, banishing it from Eos forever.” Regis corrected his son. “Continue.”

‘Okay… Ummm… Then the remaining five Astrals realized they had created too many problems for their humans, so they decided to leave Eos and live somewhere else…” Noctis looked to his dad for the answer. 

"The Astral Plane."

“Yeah, they left to go live in the Astral Plane… where I think they could watch the humans from a distance and send help if they ever needed to. But before they left, Shiva and Bahamut went to the rulers of Tenebrae, Luna’s ancestors, and Lucis, our ancestors. And Shiva gave Luna’s family the ability to use white magic and Bahamut’s wind, so they could go around the world and heal people that were hurt. And Bahamut gave our family, so like my great-great-great-great-great-great-”

“Yes, Noctis, your ancestor. Bahamut gave our ancestor the ability to wield black magic, in the forms of Shiva’s blizzard, Ifrit’s fire, Ramuh’s thunder, Leviathan’s water, and Titan’s earth.”

“Wait, Dad. I have a question… Did Bahamut leave us his own magic? Like can we make wings out of fifteen blades all at once and fly around the world and then like slice anything that gets in our way?” Noctis motioned in the air how he would slice all the monsters and annoying people with multiple swords. And maybe even that bully that he had seen bully one of his classmates. Bullies aren't cool. He laughed until he saw the lack of amusement in his father’s eyes.

“He did, but no, we cannot fly around with wings of fifteen swords all at once. Instead, we can call upon the Armiger.” Noctis looked at his father, inquisitively. “The Armiger is how you and I can conjure corporal forms of the Rulers of Yore’s weapons and wield them all at once. We can levitate with them, much like Bahamut, but they are not wings to us.”

“Oh. My. God. That sounds amazing! I wanna try to do that! How do we do that, Dad?! You have to show me!”

“Settle down, Noctis. This is where you really need to pay attention. Bahamut left our ancestors the ability to wield the power of the Astrals, but at a price. And that price is steep. It is our lifeforce.”

“What? What do you mean by lifeforce?”

“When you were training with Luna, and you were able to conjure the fire and ice, did you feel faint, or tired?”

“Yeah… After I did it a couple of times, I did have to sit down and catch my breath. But I just thought it was because I was doing it too fast and didn’t have breakfast.”

“While not eating was probably a factor and you know you should eat breakfast, it is not the main reason you had to stop. When Bahamut gave us the power to wield such destructive forces, he knew that, if left unchecked, our ancestors, no matter how good or pure of heart, could end up falling to corruption as Ifrit did. Recall, that we were made in their image. So, Bahamut made it so that whenever we call upon their aid to cast magic, a little part of us dies inside. Our lifeforce diminishes.

“Wait, Dad, that’s horrible!” Noctis exclaimed, standing up from his chair with fear in his eyes. “So you’re saying that whenever we use magic, we die quicker? Why do we even use it at all?! I’m never going to use magic ever again! I don’t want my hair to go gray! I don't wanna-” Noctis stopped mid-sentence, his eyes growing wide. 

“Noctis, while you are correct to be wary of the magic in you, you should not forsake it completely.” Regis gestured for Noctis to sit down again and compose himself. “Bahamut gifted us the ability and its price for a reason. I am warning you of the dangers, so you won’t go off to school and cast fire to show off to your peers. I only want you to use magic when you absolutely need to, like if you ever find yourself being chased by a swarm of Killer Wasps.”

“Okay Dad, I get it,” Noctis replied, still shaken from his father’s revelation, “Still doesn’t make it that much better. I don’t think I’ll ever be in a place where I’ll be chased by Killer Wasps so I don’t think I’ll ever have to use magic.”

“I hope you never are, my son.” King Regis looked at his watch and sighed. He slowly stood up from his chair. “Well Noctis, it’s time for my meeting.” He hesitated for a moment when he saw Noctis’s expression. “I’m glad we were able to have this talk.”

“Me too, Dad. Me too.”

“And Noctis,” Regis looked out the window and into the clouds. What he was looking for was lost on Noctis, and maybe even himself. “I am proud of you.” He placed his hand on Noctis’s shoulder. “I remember when I cast fire for the first time. That feeling of pride never goes away.” He smiled faintly at Noctis. “It’s what makes us Caelum’s. Never forget that.”

Noctis looked up at his father who towered over his sitting body. His father’s smile began to fade away along with the rest of his body, disintegrating into a fine white dust. The chair he was sitting on began to disappear too.

“Noct!” A voice rung out from everywhere and nowhere at once.

Noctis turned around to see the rest of the dining hall already gone. The outside gardens had turned to white, the walls around the room following, floating up into the infinite white space where the ceiling had once been.

“Are you in there, Noct? You can’t be dead now after everything.”

The chair finally disappeared, and Noctis fell. All around him was a hopeless white with no floor to catch him. He was free-falling into a never-ending abyss of white light. His arms flailed back and forth trying to find something to hold on to, to no avail. He would go on forever.

“Ahhh!!!” Noctis awoke, startled and confused. “Dad, where are you?!” He spun around abruptly, hitting Prompto right in the face.

“Whoa, watch it there, Nocto!” Prompto replied, rubbing his cheek where he was struck. “You can cast magic AND pack a punch. You’re like straight out of King’s Knight.”

“Sorry about that Prom,” Noctis apologized. He looked around and saw that they had docked back in Altissia and the sun was almost completely set. The sky had turned a beautiful blood orange hue, with blues and purples slowly creeping up from the eastern skies. “But you know, I’ve never been compared to a King’s Knight character. I kinda like it.”

“You’re totally Barusa of course.” Prompto joked.

“Oh heck, no. I am not that lizard. I’m totally Ray Jack. He’s the hero, he’s the main character!” Noctis exclaimed, jumping up from his chair.

“You think you’re the main character of this story?” Prompto asked, his eyebrows raised inquisitively.

“Well, I don’t know…” Noctis felt a heavy weight on his stomach and began to wobble treacherously. He coughed and lost his footing, and fell right into Prompto’s arms. Unbeknownst to Noctis, but Prompto’s arms were completely ready to catch him.

“Well, you really fell for me there, Prince,” Prompto said, looking into Noctis’s eyes. He cracked a smile, which made Noctis smile just a little. And his heartbeat quickened. And his hands started to sweat. But only so much that only Noctis could notice it, or so he wanted to think. “But, are you okay bro?” Prompto let Noctis go and helped him stand on his own two feet.

“Using magic really drains me,” Noctis said, remembering the dream memory he had. How vivid it was scared him. Did it actually happen? “But I’ll be okay, I just need some food and actual rest.” Noctis strategically left out the fact that the fire and ice he used killed the Killer Wasps were slowly killing him, one fractal of ice and ember of fire at a time.

“Well then, let’s get you home. And maybe I can score some food from Maagho too.” Prompto led Noctis off the boat, and onto the sidewalk. "I've always wanted to try that Caviar dish."

The water was lit up enough by the streetlights, balcony lights, and the full moon for Noctis to see their reflections. His hair was pushed flat on the side where it had laid on Prompto’s shoulder. Their hands were only inches apart, close enough to touch like the other night. Noctis thought he could hear Prompto talk about something but he was much too engrossed in the fact that walking next to him felt so natural and good. How walking with him, and talking with him, and running away from Killer Wasps, and just being with him felt so wrong and also so… right.

He had never felt like this before.

“Eos to Noctis!” Prompto waved his hands in front of Noctis’s face. “We’re here.”

Noctis looked up and saw Prompto’s blue eyes and his smile. Noctis smiled, thinking about all the new experiences he had had in just three days of knowing one Prompto Argentum. He smiled thinking about all the new experiences and hopefully not as crazy and dangerous situations he would be having with his new friend in the next two months.

“You’re wild you know that, Prompto?” Noctis asked before walking up the steps.

“In a good way, right?”

“In the best way.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, please leave any comments, kudos, message me, share with your friends (I need to prove to my family that I'm actually doing something productive instead of just like messing around on my computer and your support helps with that. Also, I demand attention. hehe.)


	3. How a Picnic and a Book Brought the Sun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again! Here's Chapter 3! I really hope you enjoy this chapter and hope you're ready for the next chapter as this is kinda part of a two-chapter arc. As always, leave comments, give me feedback, share with your friends, family, neighbors, people you barely know, etc. Thanks!

 

A soft but noticeable thumping noise woke Noctis up from his princely sleep. He was not happy. He opened his eyes fully and saw that his room was completely dark. He tried to discern where the noise was coming from but he couldn’t find its origin immediately. It was clearly not the bluejays that usually woke him up for a second followed by him putting a pillow over his head and going back to sleep. And it wasn’t his nonexistent alarm clock that wasn’t on his nightstand. Alarm clocks do not belong in summer.

The noise continued and Noctis craned his head to see if it was coming from the door. It was not; this made sense because Weskham learned pretty early that summer not to wake Noctis before the hour of 10:00 am unless the apartment was literally on fire or Leviathan herself had awoken from her eon-long sleep to take her wrath on the sinners of Eos. Weskham only made that mistake once and his ears still haven’t forgiven him.

The noise was still thumping on and Noctis begrudgingly got out of bed, his hair every which way and his eyes still tired from the night before. He checked under his bed for the boogeyperson, ready to give it a piece of his mind. He would probably use fire, ice, thunder, or any combination of his literal god-given magic to end it.

The noise reached a loud climax when he finally turned towards the window and saw the black curtain bulge with each thump. “It’s the window!” He exclaimed to Carby who sat ever cautiously on his nightstand, ready to protect him at all costs.

He was basically Doctor Noctis Holmes with his super sleuth detective skills. Evildoers and window noise makers beware.

He threw open the blinds and looked down to the street below. And sure enough, there was Prompto throwing pebbles and other rock-like objects at his window. Prompto was laughing at how silly it must have looked to any passerby. Noctis was not.

“What are you doing?!” Noctis shouted from his window, rubbing his still half-asleep eyes.

“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your golden locks!” Prompto replied, his hands cupped around his mouth to make sure his fairytale plea was heard. If anyone walking by was listening in, Prompto did not seem to notice.

“My hair’s black!” Noctis yelled back. “Don’t you know what time it is?”  
  
“Don’t you?” Prompto asked, pointing to his watch. “It’s time for you to get out of bed and join me for your birthday!” Prompto gestured to the picnic basket in his left hand and camera in his right. Of course, his camera was also attached to the camera strap around his neck. He almost never took it off, especially after the Killer Wasp incident from almost two months ago. “You didn’t forget, right? It’s not every day that it’s your last day here AND your birthday!”

“Of course I didn’t forget!” Of course, he DID forget, even though they had just made the plans last night, while they were both sleeping in his room. How had Prompto gotten up so early, left, and come back with a whole picnic basket? Noctis would have to ask or, more likely than not, forget to ask and let those questions go unanswered. “Just give me a sec!” Noctis yelled down.

He went to his closet and put on the first thing he found (the exact same outfit he wore the day he officially met Prompto, but that’s just him) and flew out of his room. He bounded down the stairs and hastily tied his boots, not bothering to pick up the mail that he had knocked over. That was not his job even though it probably should have been. Rude.

“Slow down there, Chocobo Racer,” Weskham called as Noctis tried to run past him. “Hold on for one moment.”

“What’s up Weskham?” Noctis asked,  exasperated. “I have to go meet Prompto. I’m late but what’s new?”  
  
“Boy, you’re going to have to grow out of that quick if you’re ever going to make it at University or as the King of Lucis,” Weskham chided and Noctis rolled his eyes inside. “But that’s not why I stopped you. I wanted to let you and Prompto know that I appreciate all of your hard work this summer and, given that it is your birthday, I reserved a table for you two at Maagho tonight, free of charge. Not like I would charge you anyway...?”

“Thanks, Weskham. I’ll run it by Prompto but I gotta go. I’ll see you tonight!” Noctis ran out the door, leaving his caregiver behind to pick up the coats and mail that Noctis had knocked over in his haste.

“That boy is going to have some kind of time as king, no doubt about that.” Weskham shook his head to himself, picking up the coats and mail. “May the Astrals give him strength.”

 

* * *

 

“You forgot, didn’t you?” Prompto asked Noctis as they laid down their picnic blanket.

Prompto had picked a hill just outside the main city that overlooked the marina so they could watch the countless boats coming and going. The sea was calm and the sun was shining brightly, but not too brightly. Prompto’s dirty blonde hair practically shone in the summer sunlight, accentuated by the cool ocean breeze that lifted it up and down.

A perfect day to end a perfect summer.

“I totally didn’t not forget?” Noctis replied, plopping down onto the blanket. “But in my defense, we stayed up really late last night.”

“Hey, in MY defense, it was your last night here and I wasn’t about to let you sleep through it. What kind of friend would I be?” He playfully nudged Noctis shoulder, and they both laughed. “And don’t go saying because it’s your birthday so you can’t be blamed for not waking up.”  
  
“Well,” Noctis started while taking out the plethora of cheese and crackers that Prompto had packed. “You _were_ the one who started the conversation last night and I wasn’t about to ignore you. What kind of friend would I be then?” Especially based on what the conversation was about but he wasn’t going to rehash it unless Prompto wanted to. He wasn’t even sure if he really wanted to either.

“So what I’m hearing, is that the only one to blame here is Carby,” Prompto said before taking a snapshot of Noctis opening the bag of sweet bread that Prompto’s mom had baked the night before for them. “That’s one for the books!” Prompto said before taking out a neatly decorated book from the basket and writing something down with a pen he had always kept in his case.

“Wait, what is that?” Noctis asked before reaching to grab the intriguing scrapbook.

“Whoa there, Mr. Handsy!” Prompto kept the book out of Noctis’s arms reach. “You can’t look at this yet!”  
  
“Why,” Noctis lunged for the book. “Not?!” Noctis’s arms flew in every direction to distract Prompto. He got a hold of the book and Prompto, in self-defense, pulled back. However, Noctis’s grip was so strong that Prompto pulled both of them down.

Noctis sprawled on top of Prompto who was clearly caught off-guard, especially with the fact that Noctis’s legs were completely straddling his. Noctis’s heartbeat quickened immediately when he realized how their legs were so intertwined and his hands were on both sides of the ground, next to Prompto’s head. He became distracted by how Prompto’s sky-blue eyes still shone at this angle, despite being blocked from the sun by his own head. He was distracted by the way his hip was directly above Prompto’s and his quickening heart was silently urging him to do something, something he knew he shouldn’t. Something his head and all the logic and reason in the world prevented him from doing. Something that his lips tingled for.

He was so distracted that he didn’t notice that Prompto was slowly inching towards Noctis, their eyes locked, and placed his fingers, caressed his fingers on…  
  


The book.  
  


“Got it!” Prompto exclaimed with his reclaimed book in hand, still very much under Noct. “I’ll make you a deal, Prince. I’ll show you what it is... if you let me go.”

Noctis, still very much entranced by the fact that he was on top of Prompto, didn’t hear the deal. Instead, his entire body began to ache and rush blood to the exact spot he did not want it to rush. “What was that, Blondie?”

“Ahh, I get it. You were mesmerized by how handsome my face is up close, weren’t you? I would be too,”” Prompto winked. Noctis awkwardly laughed at that, trying desperately to hide his nervousness. “But, I said that I’ll show you what’s in the book if you would kindly let me go.”

“Oh.” Noctis shook his head in realization. He was still very much on top of Prompto. He knew that of course, but somehow, he didn’t actually realize what that really meant until Prompto told him. “That was my plan all along,” Noct played off his shaken expression before picking himself up from Prompto.

“What, get me in a compromising position so you could take a peek at my scrapbook that you didn’t actually know existed until right now? That makes a lot of sense.” Prompto laughed, wiping grass off his butt and messing with his hair to maintain his signature coif.

“Shut up.” Noctis joked, doing his best to quell the inner hurricane.

“But a deal’s a deal. Are you ready to see what’s inside the book?”

Noctis nodded, glad to move past that whole ordeal, and Prompto handed him the book. The cover was made of what seemed to be grade-A Garula leather and fit perfectly in Noctis’s hands. On the cover was a Chocobo that looked just like the Chocobo on the tip jar at the cafe. Unlike other Chocobo notebooks Noctis had seen in his life, and there were quite a few given that Chocobos are probably the most popular creature in all of Eos, the Chocobo looked painstakingly drawn, something that only Prompto could have done. Noctis had seen Prompto do some doodles and sketches over the summer but Prompto was always quick to close his sketchbooks whenever Noctis looked too closely. This felt so raw and open that he wanted to give Prompto the biggest hug for sharing something with him that he knew might have been a struggle.

Noctis opened the first page and read: “Happy Birthday Noctis/Noct/Third Nickname That I’ll Get Down Eventually, I Swear if my name isn’t Prompto/Prom/Blondie Argentum!”

“Aww, Prom. You didn’t have to get me anything!” Noctis lightly punched Prompto’s shoulder. “But seriously, thanks.”

“You’re welcome, Noct,” Prompto rubbed the back of his head. “You should flip through it though. I hope you like it.”  
  
“Don’t worry. I will.” Noctis flipped to the next page and realized what kind of book it was. Developed photos from the summer were pasted on each page, with titles under each. Some pages had random stickers and other designs scattered about. A lot of care was given to each page with doodles next to some pictures, blurbs under some, and all of them clearly from Prompto’s better than amateur, but not yet professional, photography skills. But to Noctis, they were perfect.

 

* * *

 

The first page had three pictures pasted in a somewhat haphazard fashion. The first picture was of Noctis singing into a pink microphone next to two twin girls with fiery red hair. The second picture was of Noctis and a boy with dark brown hair clearly engrossed in a video game in a cluttered room. The last picture was of Noctis, the twins, the boy, a middle-aged woman with long brunette hair and a middle-aged man with fading red hair sitting at a full table eating what looked to be some kind of stew. The top of the page read, “Meeting the Family: Iconic.”

He smiled remembering meeting all of those people: Prompto’s family. Prompto leaned over Noctis and placed his chin on his shoulder to take a look at the pictures too. Noctis felt that and yet, didn’t tense up for once.

“Meredith, Olivia, this is Noctis.” Prompto introduced Noctis to his twin sisters one day after they had been running around being kings of the summer. It consisted of finding picturesque places around the city and surrounding islands to take artsy photos and finding the best scoop of gelato and playing giant chess in the park and other quintessential summery things. It was maybe the only typical summer Noctis had ever experienced.

“You’re a boy. You’re gross.” They said in perfect unison before going back to watching music videos on their computer.  It would have been creepy if Noctis didn’t know they were Prompto’s sisters. Scratch that, it was still pretty creepy.

“Is that Taylor Swift?” Noctis asked, leaning to view the screen, taking note of how red their hair was. Completely different than Prompto’s dirty blonde hair. Theirs were like the fire he had used to kill that last Killer Wasp while Prompto’s was more like a refreshing glass of lemonade on a long day after helping Weskham with a rush hour while watching the sunset with his best friend.

“You like Taylor Swift?” They asked, again in unison, their green eyes lighting up ever so slightly. If Noctis hadn't been so observant, he wouldn’t have noticed it.

“‘All Too Well’ is my favorite, all that emotion. But Shake It Off is like the best song to dance to,” Noctis replied. “She’s also super nice.”

“You’ve met her?!?!” Their eyes grew ten times larger and bore right through Noctis. He could fully appreciate the specks of brown in their green eyes, Even if he felt like they were sending him to an early grave: a little terrifying.

“Yeah, I have,” Noctis rubbed the back of his head, trying to not look at them both in their eyes. He wasn’t ready to be turned to stone with their twin magic. “Maybe I could introduce you to her if you ever make it to Insomnia.”

“One sec,” one of the twins said before they huddled together. Noctis wasn’t sure which twin it was. He would later tell Prompto this and Prompto would just laugh, not answering him.

“We like you now.” They proclaimed and clapped their hands together in unison. “Wanna sing with us?”

Prompto smiled because his sisters never warmed up to people as quickly as they did to Noctis or creeped them out with their tendency to speak together before anyone could get to know them. Prompto also saw the perfect opportunity for a picture he could embarrass Noctis with later, plastic pink microphone and improvised, horrible dance moves in full force.

“Whatcha playing, Benji?” Prompto asked when he and Noctis got to his brother’s door. Usually, Prompto had told Noctis before they got to the bedroom, his door was closed and a large STAY OUT sign hung up outside. However, it wasn’t closed that day and Prompto’s curiosity and Noctis’s naivete got the better of them. His brother was staring at his TV, his fingers flying across his controller faster than a cactuar on ecstasy. Totomostro watch out. Simulated gunfire blasted from the speakers around the room, loud enough to shake the lamp next to them.

“Call of Duty: Gralean Wars,” Benji replied tersely, not moving his gaze from the game. He probably didn’t even realize there was another person with Prompto, let alone a prince. If he did, he didn’t show it. “And it’s Benjamin.”

“I love that game,” Noctis said loud enough for Benji to hear. “Have you made it to the ancient Solheim level yet? The magitek armors are insane.”

Prompto gave him a look that screamed, “What are you doing? My brother doesn’t play well with others. We should just leave. Or we will literally die and they won’t find our bodies because he watches all those true crime shows and knows how to make it look like an accident.” Noctis gave him a look that said “Don’t worry, I’ve got this or my name isn’t Noctis Best Friends With Everyone Lucis Caelum” and Prompto rolled his eyes. They both knew that was an exaggeration at best, a complete lie at worst.

“I haven’t yet but I think I’m about to get there. Wanna play?” Benji said, not taking his eyes off the game as more gunshot noises and dying science fiction soldier grunts permeated the air.

“Do Xbox gamers suck in every single way compared to PlayStation gamers?” Noctis asked.

Benji smirked and handed Noctis the extra controller. Prompto had to get a picture of it. He would later tell Noctis that he couldn’t remember the last time he had seen Benji smile like that, let alone play with another human being. Anonymous online players like kiss-my-ax didn’t count.

“Thank you for having me,” Noctis said when he and Prompto entered the kitchen. Noctis didn’t know what he thought Prompto’s kitchen would look like, but it wasn’t that. The table was topped with a white tablecloth with floral designs, a vase of hydrangeas and a purple orchid sat perfectly on the windowsill, and the whole room smelled of vanilla and peppermint combined with the food that was almost finished cooking. The smells didn’t seem like they would go together all that well but somehow, it worked. And he was not prepared for it at all.

“It’s our pleasure,” The man with light red hair said before placing a large, steaming pot on the table. Prompto introduced him as his adoptive dad, Lewis. That’s when Noctis realized why Prompto with his dirty blonde hair looked nothing like his siblings or his parents and their decidedly not-blonde hair.

“It’s not every day we have royalty in our house,” The woman, who Prompto introduced as his adoptive mother, Leona. The irony of their names was not lost on them. “Girls, Benji, dinner’s ready!” She called out to muffled replies from the rest of the house. Noctis wondered if this was what an actual family felt like.

“In Insomnia, I’m a prince,” Noctis said sheepishly while setting silverware on the table. “But here, I’m just your average, nineteen-year-old boy.”

“Well ‘Average, Nineteen Year Old Boy’,” Lewis said as he sat down. “I hope you like Altissian Stew. It’s Prompto’s favorite.” Lewis turned to Prompto who was ravenously eyeing the stew, with a sliver of mischief in his eyes.

Noctis squinted at Prompto and then took in a whiff of the pot. He instantly knew he was going to have to pretend to like it. It reeked of vegetables. “This smells… good.”

“Noctis hates vegetables,” Prompto said, winking at Noctis.

“I don’t h-” Noctis started.

“Crikey,” Lewis said before he went to serve the first bowl. “If I would have known, I would have made something…”

“Less healthy?” Prompto added, laughing.

“I wouldn’t say I _hate_ vegetables.” Noctis scratched the back of his head, willing himself to not sweat nervously. That would be embarrassing. He had hoped his picky eating tendencies wouldn’t catch up to him but his time had clearly run out. Ignis would probably have a field day watching him right then.

“Really, Noct?” Prompto asked, his mouth in a smirk that chilled Noctis to the bone. This boy was about to light him up like a sparkler in a field of dry grass. “Because if I remember correctly, you almost gagged when they put tomato in your hamburger at Cafe Altissia and then there was also that time when you took off all the spinach from an eggs florentine, knowing that spinach is like one of the main parts of it. Honestly, I don’t even know why you ordered it. And then there was the-”

“Leave our friend alone!” Meredith and Olivia yelled from their side of the table in unison, their green eyes boring right through Prompto into the abyss. They even banged the ends of their spoons on the table to get attention. They meant business: twin business.

“I know I don’t like vegetables all that much either.” Benji deadpanned from next to them, the side of his mouth very subtly arching up in the shadow of a smile. He was probably on Noctis’s side because of how much he had helped him get through the hardest map in the game.

“I see it’s four against one,” Noctis replied, thankful for some backup. Prompto was going down. He would rue the day he thought he could ever best Noctis Lucis Caelum.

“Make that six versus one,” Leona said, winking at Lewis.

“Et Tu, mother?” Prompto gasped, clutching his chest in mock defeat. Noctis could almost see the imaginary swords that he and his family had just plunged into his chest and smiled.  One less traitor to deal with. And if he were to be the future King of Lucis, he needed to know that all the traitors had been dealt with.

“But _you_ will still need to eat your vegetables,” Leona turned towards Noctis with a motherly stare. Apparently, he wasn’t completely off the hook and the smell of stew permeated through his body and soul. He may have won the battle against Prompto but he knew he had lost the war against vegetables.

“And because you’re apparently not a prince here-” Lewis winked and continued his wife’s sentence.

Prompto had told Noctis that the two of them had met in high school and had crushes on each other but didn’t start dating after they had both finished college at different universities, on opposite sides of Eos. They had serendipitously met one another again at a non-profit for foster care youth. It was also where they had met a toddler Prompto. So they had known how to finish each other’s sentences -  and sandwiches - for longer than he could imagine.

“We want to be princesses too!” Meredith and Olivia interrupted, between large slurps of stew.

“And I’m sure your father would want to know that you’re eating well when you’re not with him,” Leona added, slurping her stew. “I know I would want my children to eat well.” She looked around the table at her four children and took a long drink of her tea.

“Living with a king sounds like a lot of work,” Benji added quietly, his shoulder scrunched forward over his bowl like it would fly away at any given moment.

“So, eat up!” Leona clapped her hands together and smiled.

“And don’t gag,” Benji added, with a sly smile.

The entire dinner table cracked up. And it turned out that Noctis didn’t hate the stew, maybe he even liked it. Just maybe. Ignis could never know.

Prompto would later tell Noctis how happy he was to see his family together with his new friend. His sisters and brother actually liked him and they never liked anyone he brought over. And he knew this because the three of them talked about Noctis right after he had left for the night and for days after. His parents seemed to really approve of his new friend, maybe because he was a prince but maybe, just maybe, because Noctis was actually a good guy.

Prompto just had to take a picture of all of them in that moment, capturing the faces Noctis made when he took each grueling gulp of his vegetable-laden stew and the smiles coming from his family.

They were happy.

Noctis flipped through more pictures and smiled, seeing blurry pictures of nature and random pictures of passerby. He got to the last page with two pictures and stopped. One of them was a picture of Noctis and Prompto trying to beat each other at a dancing game and the other one was of both of them lying on Noctis’s floor, with Prompto holding the camera up to take the picture. They looked extremely tired and Noctis especially looked out of breath. The top of the page read, “The Last Night of the Best Summer Ever: Legendary.”

Noctis’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down when the memories from that day, only yesterday, came rushing back.

Lights were flashing everywhere, buttons were smashed, and kids of all ages were yelling when they won and were crying when they lost. Prompto grabbed Noctis’s hand and led him past lit-up King’s Knight licensed pinball games and one vintage fighting game. Noctis really wanted to play that one but Prompto pulled him past it before he could contest.

“But, Final Fantasy,” Noctis whined when Prompto finally stopped them in front of a dusty game in the back of the arcade. Almost no one was around, most of them engrossed in the other games.

“But Dance Dance Revolution,” Prompto replied before dusting off the display. He put in two fifty Gil coins into the slot and it came to life. “You would think more people would play this one. It literally has the best hits ever.”

“I don’t dance,” Noctis said plainly. “I’d rather play that cool Dissidia game.”

“Come onnn,” Prompto whined, holding onto Noctis’s hands. He gave Noctis the biggest puppy dog eyes, even pouting his bottom lip. Noctis stood there silently until he couldn’t anymore and finally gave in.

“Just one dance, and then I’ll crush you at Dissidia.”

“Awesome! Thanks, Noct! You won’t regret it.”

Prompto gave his camera to a girl who had walked by, probably trying to figure out where she knew Noctis from. News flash: It IS Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum. And no, he won’t be signing anything for you. He had made that mistake once before and ended up turning a thirty minute trip to the convenience store into a two hour ordeal. One only makes that mistake one.

Prompto whispered something into her ear and went back to Noctis who was staring at the screen, analyzing the many songs on the list. He didn't want to admit it to Prompto, but he knew almost all the songs on the list, from Britney Spears to Carly Rae Jepsen. And not just because they had populated the Top 100 radio list for the past couple of years but because he, ironically and unironically, listened to most of them on a regular basis. That was a secret he tried to keep from most people. It would totally mess with his image, clearly.

“You ready?” Prompto asked after choosing a song that Noctis didn’t see.

“Like getting ready for a root canal,” Noctis said with a straight face. His eyes betrayed nothing.

“Love yah, bro.” Prompto gave Noctis a playful shove.

The song started and Prompto’s eyes glued themselves to the screen and his feet followed to the colored arrows below him. Noctis tried his best to follow the directions on the screen and move his feet to one of the Top 100 radio songs that Prompto had chosen. Although he had been much quicker than Prompto when escaping the wasps, that speed did not translate to the dexterity and flexibility and foot-eye coordination required for this game. A particular set of skills was required that Noctis clearly lacked, or had not awakened inside of himself. Needless to say, Prompto won, by a landslide.

“Beginner's luck,” Noctis grumbled before taking out his wallet and hastily putting more gil coins into the game. He was not going to accept defeat and let Prompto have all the satisfaction.

“Suit yourself, Noct,” Prompto shrugged, smiling too mischievously for Noctis’s sore loser self. Then the music started again and those garish colored arrows and well-timed beats erupted from the machine, its screen and speakers fully awakened after probably years of disuse.

“One more, please?” Noctis pleaded after losing for the third time. Sweat glistened on his forehead and he had already shed his signature leather jacket. Prompto had made the same comment about Noctis’s bleak color code and Noctis shrugged it off like he had almost that entire summer. His go-to reason/excuse would always be that the one time he didn’t wear his signature outfit they both had almost been skewered by mega wasps. And Prompto subsequently, like he had the entire summer, whined that Noctis would never let that go.

“I guess, but I have one condition,” Prompto said before inserting the tender. “Winner gets to pick whose house we sleep at tonight.”

Noctis remembered that he had told Prompto, in honor of his last night in Altissia, they would have a “super epic sleepover”. Prompto coined the term and Noctis approved of it. Although kiddish, calling things like that really spoke to the child Noctis who missed out on almost everything that normal children did. A lot of kids his age would have killed to have a sleepover with Noctis, but more for the fact they would get to sleep in the citadel rather than hanging with Noctis himself. But Noctis was glad to have found the one person in all of Eos that was probably more excited to sleep with Noctis (not like that though) than in the same building that the Lucian: Gralean Peace Accords were signed thirty years ago.

In return, Prompto said he was going to do something huge for Noctis’ final day in the Altissia, which also happened to be his twentieth birthday.

“Deal.” They shook sweaty hands and Noctis knew in his heart, he had made a great new friend. Who else would have been able to coerce him to play Dance Dance Revolution, let alone beg to keep playing in a now-crowded arcade with probably twenty onlookers?

Noctis chose the all-time signature dance song of the ages, Shake it Off, and put on his best game face. Prompto was going down.

Taylor Swift’s flowing vocals and trademarked “sick beat™” emanated from the speakers and the two boys went at it like there was no one watching. Their feet moved in total synchronization and they were on a different plane of existence than everyone else in the room. It was just the two of them. Two hearts beating as one, two pairs of legs flying to colored arrows, and insatiable pop princess magic. Thanks, Taylor.

“I won!” Noctis exclaimed after the song finally ended and the sweat stopped flying off his face to the beat of the music. He beat Prompto by a whopping two points! It was clearly time to gloat.

“Barely.” Prompto scowled at Noctis and wiped the sweat off his forehead with the bandana around his upper arm. “But you won fair and square, after like five times, of course. But you still won.”

“Damn right I did!” Noctis cheered and turned around to face his numerous fans. He raised his arms up and down and bobbed his head with them, not caring how he looked in that arcade. Cheers came from the audience and Noctis felt on top of the world. “I feel God in this arcade tonight!”

“So who’s place tonight, oh humble one?” Prompto asked once Noctis came down from his high.

“Let’s do mine. I’m feeling generous. And you lost so you deserve pity, I think.”

“You literally lost four times in a row.” Prompto rolled his eyes but his mouth was in a giddy smile.

“Yeah but like I won the one that mattered the most so I’m like the greatest of all time. A goat?”

“You’re dumb.”

“Couldn’t let you take all the dumb in this relationship.” Noctis put his arm around Prompto’s shoulder and they sauntered away from the newly popular game. Noctis loved how his arm felt around Prompto’s perfectly spaced shoulders.

“So this is a relationship,” Prompto replied, his eyebrows arched inquisitively.

“Shut up.” Noctis teasingly punched Prompto and wondered if that was what he really wanted. He couldn’t.

“Wowwwwwww,” Prompto exclaimed when Noctis opened the door to his room. “So this is how a Prince lives?”

“For the summer, yeah,” Noctis replied before closing the door behind him. “Have you never seen my room before?”

“Nope! We either ended up at my place or we went to our own houses,” Prompto replied. “May I?” he asked, pointing to Noctis’s clean bed. Noctis had made the bed before he left that morning like he always did. Just another aspect of his royal upbringing that refused to leave him.

“Go for it,” Noctis said, walking to his closet. He had to get out of those sweaty clothes, even if he loved the black.

Prompto immediately fell backward onto the bed and spread his limbs all over the dark blue comforter. “This is so soft!”

“100% Tenebraen cotton.” Noctis unthinkingly replied, without turning around, before taking off his shirt that was now 60% cotton, 40% dried sweat.

He glanced into the mirror attached to the closet door and could have sworn he saw Prompto staring at him. A shiver shot up Noctis’s back as he realized that Prompto could almost see everything. Everything being his bare back and chest. He became incredibly aware of the remnant spots of back acne on his upper shoulders and the way his arms didn’t sag but also didn’t hold up to some kind of standard. He was how many people would categorize as “in shape” but he sure wasn’t a Gladio with muscles on muscles. He had never been too self-conscious about his body, except for maybe the awkward acne phase he went through his second year of high school, but having Prompto in the room made him colder than Shiva’s Diamond Dust could ever.

He quickly put on the first shirt he could find and tugged it over his head. In his franticness, Noctis somehow got his arm stuck in the sleeve and couldn’t find a way out. Which was even more embarrassing than maybe showing Prompto a little too much skin. Yikes.

“Need some help there, Noct?” Prompto asked coming up behind him. He put his hands on Noctis’s stuck arm and slowly worked his way around his shirt. With one graceful pull, Prompto untangled his arms and fixed the shirt. He smiled when their eyes met and Noctis could feel his heart beating faster than the Golden Chocobo that ran away from them those many months before. “Maybe you shouldn’t try to put your shirt on so quickly next time.” He said, trying to stifle a laugh. “It’s like you didn’t even go to elementary school or something. Or do you learn how to put on a shirt when you’re like four?”

“Thanks,” Noctis replied tersely, quickly averting his eyes, before quickly closing the closet.

Noctis didn’t want to really acknowledge why his heart was racing so fast. They had cooled down after their dance-off at the cafe and he had never felt his heart going that fast before for a person. Not ever. Not even with Luna. Changing his pants would have to come later, when Prompto wasn’t so present and when Noctis’s heart didn’t feel like bursting out of his chest.

“Love the shirt by the way. Malboro Buddies was my favorite show when I was a kid.” Prompto said before laying back down on Noctis’s bed. His head nestled its way between Noctis’s two pillows. “When I was a kid, of course.”

“Well, it was the first clean shirt I found. And for the record, a lot of self-respecting young adults like Malboro Buddies.” Noctis said before rummaging through his drawers to find a clean shirt for Prompto. He wasn’t going to have Prompto’s dried sweat somehow become wet again and make his bed all sweaty and smell like him so when he fell asleep that night he would sniff the bed and smile. That was not going to happen. At all. Ever.

He grabbed a shirt and held it up so only he could see it. He smirked. “Think fast,” he said before chucking the shirt at Prompto who was busy rolling around on his bed, taking pictures of himself at different angles. Or maybe he was taking pictures of things that weren’t him? Noctis wasn’t sure.

Prompto sat up quickly and caught the shirt with his free hand. “What’s this for?” He asked before unfolding it.

“I’m moving out of here in two days and I don’t want Weskham to have to like burn the bed because of your stinky sweat. Duh.” Noctis replied before closing the closet. His heart was now beating at its normal pace and he felt okay again.

“I don’t smell that bad,” Prompto replied before sniffing his armpits. “Oh, never mind.” They both laughed. Prompto held up the shirt and gave it a good look. “Bro, are you serious?” On the front was almost an exact copy of the shirt Noctis was wearing. Except in orange. “Out of all the shirts you probably have. Out of all the black shirts you have. You had the give me this orange monstrosity?”

“Maybe next time don’t insult one of my favorite shows of all time.” Noctis laughed before sitting down on his bed. Prompto laid horizontally across, tugging at his new orange shirt.

“Alright, alright.” Prompto’s hands found their way to the nearest soft thing on the bed. Then grasped the side of the lone pillow on the bed and swung it at the back of Noctis’ head.

“What was that for?!” Noctis asked rubbing his head with his left hand, his right hand searching for something for a rebuttal.

As Noctis reached to grab a second pillow that he had knocked on the floor the previous night, Prompto exclaimed, “This. Is. So. Cute!”

Noctis turned to see Prompto holding up Carby, his faint red-stained, seafoam green fur glowing with the Altissian sunset sky that was shining through the window. The blood orange sunlight magnified the traces of dried red stains that still remained.

An ear-splitting horn.

   Shattering glass.

      His mother’s arm, his first shield.

“Give me that!” Noctis screamed as he lunged towards Prompto, grabbing Carby by the torso and almost knocking Prompto right off the bed. “Don’t. Touch. Him.”

“Whoa. Sorry, Noct.” Prompto replied, rubbing the side where Noctis pushed him. “Are you alright?”

“Just, Carby is really, really, special to me,” Noctis said, petting and re-petting the fur, trying to smooth out places that would never actually stay.

Too many screams.

   Sirens, too little, too late.

      The worst shade of red imaginable.

“I can tell,” Prompto said, repositioning himself on the bed, so he could look right into Noctis’ eyes. “We’ve been friends for a while… you know you can tell me anything, right?”

Noctis breathed out a long sigh and placed Carby on the nightstand so he could watch the two of them with his omniscient ruby. His face was forever its stoic yet calming facade, but Noctis knew that he was smiling inside, even if he was just a plush. “Thanks, Prom. I’m okay. It’s just... my mom gave me Carby for my fifth birthday, and well, he reminds me of her, that’s all. I don’t let anyone near him. Not Iggy or Gladio. Not my father, or even Luna.”

“I get it,” Prompto reached across the bed and placed his hand on Noctis’ knee, “Sorry for like totally invading your privacy.”

“Sorry for like blowing up at you.”

“But maybe next time, don’t give me a shirt in the ugliest color known to all of humanity?” Prompto reached over and grabbed the pillow again at the same time Noctis realized he should do the same. Pillow after pillow, swing after swing, the two of them fought for what seemed like forever. Prompto made sure to not get too close to Carby with his wild swings, both out of fear and respect.

“And if you ever want to talk about it, I’m here for you,” Prompto said, stopping mid-swing.

“Thanks, but you’re not going to distract me like that,” Noctis said before swimming at Prompto with all his might. Prompto exaggeratedly fell off the bed, swinging his arms wildly so he could grab Noctis’s leg. And pulled him down with him.

“If I’m going down, I’m taking you down with me!”

As the two of them laid there on the floor, panting from the pillow fight, Prompto reached over Noctis. Noctis tensed up as he felt all of Prompto’s arm over his body, feeling the way his forearm slid over his lower chest, too close to his hip area. Prompto kept reaching until he grabbed onto the camera case that was lying next to Noctis. Noctis gave out a subtle sigh.

“I really don’t want you to leave, Noctis,” Prompto said, turning on his camera.

“Wow, full names, huh?” Noctis asked. “I don’t think I want to either, though, Prompto.”

Prompto smiled at Noctis and reached his arm above the two of them, his faithful camera in hand. And Noctis’s heart reaching to be in that hand too while his brain held it back.

 

* * *

 

Noctis closed the scrapbook and held it to his chest. “I love it Blondie,” he managed to get out. “This is like the best present I’ve ever gotten.”

Prompto rubbed the back of his head, looking down at his feet. “I’m glad you like it. I got the idea from this professor at ULI’s autobiography. And I even left lots of pages open in the back for more pictures if you ever come across anything you want to put in there.”

“I’ll do my best, Blondie.”

“I’m glad you like it though.” Prompto fell back on the blanket, nearly missing the bread and cheese. “I just can’t believe summer’s almost over.”

“Neither can I,” Noctis replied before falling back on the picnic blanket as well. Their hands were close, close enough to touch.

They both looked up to the sky and watched the passing clouds and seagulls floating overhead. Prompto was completely sure that cloud looked like a Chocobo but Noctis couldn’t see it. Noctis thought another one looked like a sylleblossom and Prompto agreed. A gentle breeze blew by, lifting Prompto’s shirt just enough for Noctis’s periphery vision to see the V of his lower abdomen disappearing into his beltline. He gulped silently.

“So, you said Weskham told you something this morning?” Prompto asked, pulling up a couple of blades of grass.

“Oh yeah,” Noctis replied, a little startled. He was becoming entranced in the way Prompto was studying each blade as if to pinpoint the location of each individual chlorophyll molecule. “He said, in honor of my birthday and for all the help we gave him this summer, he reserved us a table at Maagho for tonight.”

“That sounds amazing!” Prompto said, letting go of the blades of grass. They danced away in the breeze, going up and up over the hill towards the marina. The marina was being prepared for the end of the summer festival. Sailboats of all shapes and sizes were being set up by eager Altissians and young children ran free with sailboat and moogle and Chocobo kites.

 

**KUPO KUPO**

Prompto took out his phone to the very distinctive text tone and read the notification. “It’s my mom.” He told Noctis. “She said a package came for me.” He got up and wiped off the lingering dirt and grass from his pants. “I better get going. But I’ll see you tonight at-” he shot two finger guns at Noctis. “MAAGHO!!!”

“See you then, Blondie. I think I’ll stay out here just a little bit longer though.” Noctis replied, rolling over on the grass so Prompto could pick up the picnic supplies.

“Altissia really grew on you didn’t it, Noct?”

“I guess it has.” Noctis closed his eyes, letting the afternoon Altissian sun warm his skin and the sea breeze blow through his hair. He peeked his eyes open just a little as Prompto walked away, picnic basket and camera in hand. Noctis didn’t think he would be ready to see Prompto walk away for the last time when tomorrow finally came, and reality set back in.

The past three months really had changed him. When he had first arrived, Noctis was the kind of person who, despite his royal upbringing and celebrity, would have rather stayed inside playing video games for hours on end than go on a birthday picnic with a guy he had only met a few months before. He was never one to go on adventures to uncharted islands searching for mythical Chocobos or go snorkeling in a hidden coral reef to find what Prompto described as mermaid crossed with a pelican. Noctis was skeptical, to say the least, but still went along with it.

Something fundamental to his personality, no, to his whole being had changed in the course of just those three months.

One could attribute it to the Altissian condition, to constant sun and good vibes, to a relaxing sea breeze that showed cute people’s midriffs. Or to him being away from the big city with its non-stop noise and car horns and neon lights and impenetrable crowds. Or to him not having to deal with an overbearing and judgmental father and constant standards to live up to and ultimately never meeting.

But, to be completely honest, it was Prompto Argentum, with his blond hair, and ever-present cheery disposition, and his knack for finding adventure, and incapability to let Noctis sit and waste away all day, that sparked this change in the once-loner Prince.

Noctis pondered this while lying on that calm Altissian hill well into the afternoon, drifting in and out of sleep, unable to decipher dream from wake. Even with the intermittent horns of boats coming in and out, seagull squawks, and children’s laughter rising up with the breeze.

He had changed.

Maybe his father _was_ right, although Noctis would never want to admit that, all those months ago to send him away to what Noctis then thought would be the worst summer of his life. Maybe the sun did do him some good like Luna had said in her letter.

But Maybe the Sun Isn’t the Sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If y'all have suggestions on how I can better interact with y'all please let me know! I do have a Tumblr but I haven't used it in a long time (and it might be a Taylor Swift fan blog from when I was in HS lol)


	4. How Their Words Were Drowned Out by Fireworks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. Sorry, everyone! I know it's been SO LONG since I last updated! Almost immediately after I uploaded Chapter 3 I was bombarded with finals and graduation but now, I'm free of school for the rest of my life! (Unless I want to go to grad school, which would be wild). Anyway, now that school's out of the way, I'm going to devoting so much more time to this fanfiction and hope that I can start updating way more regularly.  
> I really hope you all enjoy this chapter and as always, please like, comment, and share with all of your friends, acquaintances, strangers, etc.

Noctis stood outside, tapping his fingers incessantly on the cold railing. Prompto wasn’t exactly late but he wasn’t exactly early either. And Noctis was way too anxious to care either way. He tugged at the sleeves of his dress shirt and readjusted his tie once, twice, and three times again, even though he knew it was fine. Anything to keep his hands from texting Prompto to see where he was.

“Wow,” Noctis said, willing his jaw not to drop to the floor when Prompto finally walked up. Not like he was late though. Because he wasn’t. Barely.

Prompto was in a newly pressed white suit, complete with a sky-blue dress shirt, light gray blazer, and distinct Chocobo tie. The chocobo was not taking a dump but it was still very on brand for Prompto. His hair was combed to the side; his mom’s handiwork was visible with the shine of just the perfect amount of gel/mousse/whatever moms put in their son's hair to make them look halfway presentable. Somehow though, Prompto was able to get away with just enough lift in his hair that he didn’t look completely foreign to the still stunned Noctis.

“I look pretty great, don't I?” Prompto asked, spinning around to show off the suit he was so clearly proud of. “I can’t take all the credit though. The suit was my dad’s from when he was our age and my mom did some tailoring and stuff and pressed it and everything. She said, and I quote, ‘You can’t go to the fanciest restaurant in all of Eos with the Crown Prince of Lucis in your old button-up shirt that looks older than your father.’” Prompto even mimicked his mom’s posh Tenebraen accent. It was the same accent that both Luna and Ignis had, even though Ignis had grown up in Insomnia for most of his life. “It’s not too much, is it? My mom almost killed me when she saw the tie though. Also, don’t tell anyone but it might have taken me like thirty minutes to tie this tie. But really, what do you think?” Prompto jokingly popped his collar and then went to try to fix it. “A little help here?

“You look,” Noctis began while readjusting Prompto’s tie and trying his best to find the word, “stunning.” That probably wasn’t the most appropriate word for him to have chosen for “just his friend” but he didn’t particularly notice. Or particularly care.

“Stunning, huh?” Prompto asked, his eyebrows raised. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were hitting on me, my dear princely friend.” He gave Noctis a playful shove in the shoulder.

“Ha,” Noctis squealed out, almost jumping. “We should probably head inside…”

“Sounds good, Noct,” Prompto said following Noctis towards the entrance. “And you don’t look so shabby yourself.”

Noctis looked down at his own suit, noting how drastically different him and Prompto looked tonight. He was wearing the royal suit that had been retailored and refitted for years, the one that had been specially designed for the royal family for, what Noctis believed, centuries: black jacket with vertical dark gray stripes, silver buttons enclosing the black blazer and black shirt, finished off a black tie with diagonal white stripes.

If Prompto was the daytime and summer, then Noctis was the nighttime and winter. Yin and Yang. Oreo cookie and Oreo filling. And it worked. At least Noctis tried to constantly convince himself that it did. Eternal darkness didn’t sound as appealing as a world with both Prompto’s light and his, darkness. Or his desire to be light. Prompto made him want to be the moon instead of just the black night sky. More Lucis than Noctis.

“You coming? It IS your birthday after all.” Prompto asked from the top of the stairs leading to the entrance. Noctis hadn’t noticed that he was waiting for him while he was contemplating black and white.

“Sorry, Prom.” Noctis went up the stairs, two steps at a time, the way that guys often do. “Let’s go celebrate the passing of another year of me being on this planet.”

“That’s one way of putting it but I like to think of it as another year being able to take great pictures like this one!” In a flash, Prompto took a candid picture of Noctis at the top of those steps, in his royal raiment.

“You’re an interesting guy, Prompto.”

Prompto took an exaggerated bow, bending almost to a full ninety degrees. “I will take that as a compliment.” They both laughed, giving the serene Altissian night time a flourish of happy noise. “After you, my princely friend.”

Prompto held open the door and to Noctis, that was everything.  
  


* * *

“Please follow me to your table, Your Highness and…” The hostess gave Prompto a not-so-subtle once-over, not trying very hard to hide her… less than desirable feelings. “Guest.”

“Thank you!” Prompto replied enthusiastically.

Noctis wasn’t sure if Prompto was aware of the disdain and jealousy oozing from the blonde hostess and was purposely playing up his characteristic jovial personality to annoy her. Or if Prompto was just gleefully unaware of how much she probably wanted to strangle or at least replace him. Noctis was used to this kind of service, not so much when he went places with Lunafreya because her presence demanded respect and admiration from all those who knew or merely knew of her, but more when he would be with Ignis, Gladio, or especially Gladio’s younger sister, Iris. People just wanted to be with Noctis or maybe wanted him to be with people more of his station. See: Lunafreya Nox Fleuret.

“Can I get you started with something to drink?” The hostess asked Noctis, keeping her gaze solely on him. She was really trying to make it known who she kept in her sights and regard. Maybe Noctis would mention this to Weskham.

“I’ll take a glass of the Chateau Scientia Cabernet Sauvignon,” Noctis replied, not looking at his menu.

“Wow, say that ten times fast,” Prompto giggled from his side of the table.

The hostess was not amused. “If _you_ need,” She started, turning towards Prompto with an icy stare that could give Shiva a run for her money. “I have some house recommendations. Might I suggest a lemonade or apple juice?”

“Let me peruse this menu of fine alcoholic grapes and see if my very discerning palette and experience with only the most expensive and super-duper fancy wi-”

“We’ll just take a bottle of the Cabernet,” Noctis interrupted him.

“Thank you,” The hostess said only to Noctis and took his menu gracefully. She then snatched the menu out of Prompto with so much force that he had to rub his hands exaggeratedly afterward.

“So... she was nice,” Prompto commented after his hands were adequately rubbed. “Glad I didn’t get a paper cut. Menu cut?”

“Sorry about that, Blondie,” Noctis said, moving his forks and knives around mindlessly. “I completely forgot how people treat me literally everywhere besides here in Altissia. Like I’m the only one who exists and everyone else is… well...”

“Yo, it’s okay,” Prompto interrupted, taking his napkin from the table and placing on his lap. “I bet it’s harder on your end anyway. Like people never treating you like you’re normal and then being high key rude to amazing people like me.” Prompto signaled to his entire body and it took a lot in Noctis everything in his body to not throw a piece of bread that was just brought to the table at Prompto’s smug face.

“You’re ridiculous. Maybe Amanda had it right to offer you lemonade. Because you’re a literal child.”

“I’d rather be a child than a wine snob.” Prompto folded his arms and gave Noctis a snarky look. “Like I know you’re like the literal bourgeoisie and above the rest of us plebs but you know way too much about wine. Like please don’t sniff and gargle and do that weird stuff with the wine when it gets here. I might have to unfriend you effective immediately.”

“Wow because I knew one wine?” Noctis asked incredulously. “It seems like our friendship is on some really shaky foundation if, how you say, ‘alcoholic grapes’ are going to derail one of the best summers of my life.” Noctis gave Prompto puppy dog eyes and pouted his outer lip. Just like what Iris had taught him how to do years before.

“Aw, Noct. You’re going to make me blush.” Prompto let out a deep breath. “Fine, I won’t unfriend you if you swirl and sniff your wine. But if you gargle or so any weird mouth things with it I’m out and you’re never seeing me again.”

“Deal but, really? Weird mouth things?”

“You know like,” Prompto went to grab his glass of water. “Like thi-”

“Ahem, if you’re done,” The hostess, who also turned out to be their full-time waitress, returned with two empty wine glasses and the bottle of wine. The label had a cozy looking cottage among rows and rows of grapevines. It reminded Noctis of the many times he had run through those exact grapevines, playing tag or imagining he was running away from some mythical daemon with Ignis and Gladio in their youth.

“Are you ready to order?” The waitress asked Noctis, still clearly trying her best to ignore Prompto.

Prompto took this opportunity to make funny faces, with his tongue out and hands on his ears and all other combinations of faces one would make at a baby to get them to laugh. Noctis swatted at Prompto to stop before he busted his gut and doubled over laughing. One might think he was being hyperbolic but he had actually fallen over laughing once from a joke Prompto had made about a Moogle, Chocobo, and Cactuar (curse you Cactuars!) walking into a bar and needed Prompto to help him back up.

“I’ll take the Maagho Lasagna but without the garnish or the cucumbers and can you ask Weskham or whoever is cooking tonight to use the non-tomato based sauce? You know the one with-”

“Anything for you, Your Highness,” the waitress replied, unapologetically batting her exaggerated eyelashes. She probably got them done at Christine’s, one of the many salons that populated Altissia. Noctis only knew of this place because Prompto had tricked him into taking his twin sisters there so he wouldn’t be completely alone while they got their nails and hair done just like Taylor had for the latest award show.

“And my friend will have,” Noctis looked over to Prompto who was mid-goofy face. “The Fine Caviar Canapé.” He gave Prompto a questioning look and Prompto quickly nodded, somewhat embarrassed for taking so much time in coming up with funny faces rather than looking at the menu. Of course, there were only four things on the menu: Fettini di Cernia, Maagho Lasagna, Wood-Smoked Fish, and Fine Caviar Canape. And given how often Prompto had mentioned the Caviar Canape as being a dream of his whenever the two of them were assisting Weskham with restaurant tasks, Noctis knew that was the dish he had to have.

“Alright…” The waitress replied, giving a very conspicuous side-eye to Prompto who was smiling way too large for any of their tastes. She then took the two dinner menus out of their hands and walked away, but not without flashing a dainty smile at Noctis and nothing but ice to Prompto.

“You know,” Prompto said once she was well out of earshot. “I don’t think she likes me very much.”

“You don’t say?” Noctis laughed before opening the bottle of wine and pouring Prompto and his glasses. “I don’t think I’ve seen her around before anyway. She’s probably from Insomnia.”

“And what makes you say that? Was it her charming hospitality? Or wait, was it the way she only talked and responded to you? Or was it-”

“ANYWAY,” Noctis interjected which Prompto replied with a raucous laugh that made the neighboring table turn around. “Sorry!” Noctis apologized for Prompto before trying to hide his face behind the nonexistent menu.

“Are you,” Prompto placed his hand on his chest and made a surprised face. “Embarrassed of me, Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum? Say it isn’t so!”

“Honestly, I’m embarrassed for both of us,” Noctis smiled.

“Well, at least we’re in it together!” Prompto made a motion that signaled to Noctis that he was about to stand up and do something stupid and even more embarrassing then sounding like a dying dolphin. “And I- oop!”

Noctis kicked him under the table and gave him a thousand-yard death stare. Something that he had picked up from his father. He couldn’t count on both of his hands how many times he had received the bone-chilling stare. But he was glad he was able to use it for once, even if it was only to stop Prompto from making a fool out of himself in one of the fanciest, and bougiest (Prompto called it this every time Maagho was mentioned in conversation or they had walked past it or helped in during rush hours, which was a lot) restaurants in all of Eos.

“Sit back down and drink your wine,” Noctis scolded him but really wanted to laugh. He couldn’t remember the last time before this summer when he had been genuinely happy at a fancy dinner.

Prompto rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. “But- But-”

“You really are a child.”

“But am I a cute child?” Prompto asked, batting his eyelashes like the waitress had.

“Maybe after a few glasses of wine,” Noctis said. Of course, he really wanted to say yes but didn’t. For obvious reasons.

“Okay then, let’s have some wine.” Prompto shot Noctis a smirk and then took his glass. “What are we toasting to?”

“Uhh…” Noctis didn’t really know how to answer that. Was he supposed to say the best summer he had ever had in his entire life where he hadn’t once thought of the dark things he was so used to in Insomnia? Was he supposed to say the best friend he had ever had that actually liked him for him and didn’t make him feel like they were only with him because he was a prince? Was he supposed to say to the feelings he had felt growing and growing in him since the moment they first spoke?

“How about to an awesome summer?” Prompto finally said. Noctis internally thanked him for unknowingly saving him from himself. Which he thought was extremely ironic. And a bit confusing.

“That sounds perfect,” Noctis raised his glass near Prompto’s.

“Oh!” Prompto lowered his glass suddenly, which almost made some of his red wine splash out of the glass. If it had splashed out, then it would have inevitably gotten on his white suit which would have been a disaster. “And also to best friends. Because you’re my best friend. Ever. And I mean ever. Like-”

“You’re my best friend too, Prompto.” Noctis smiled and raised his glass once more, hoping that Prompto would raise his glass again and hopefully not splash anything.

Prompto raised his glass and brought it so close to Noctis’s glass that they almost clinked. “Oh!” Prompto brought his glass back down again, slower this time, but still, back down. “And-”

“And to what? I kinda want to drink in this century, hopefully.”

“Last one, I promise.”

Even if Noctis had been a little short with Prompto, he was pretty sure, no, completely sure, he didn’t want it to end. Even if it meant that he wouldn’t be able to drink in the foreseeable future. But the “it” wasn’t really the toast.

“I also want to toast to…” Prompto waited for some type of anticipatory cue from Noctis. Like a drumbeat or something. “Alcoholic grapes. May they be free of their disorder, because addiction is a disease, not a lifestyle choice.”

“You’re really something, Blondie.” Noctis shook his head and smiled. This was his best friend and he couldn’t be any happier with it. Except if maybe they didn’t have to say goodbye for what was probably going to be forever. And if not forever, at least for a very long time.

And maybe that’s why he really wanted this wine.

They clinked their glasses and took sips of the wine. Noctis smiled a little, taking in the bold crisp flavors of the Scientia family’s, Ignis’s family, most popular red wine. The bold hit of the aged grapes was followed by a refreshing and warm aftertaste of sun. Of course, that’s how Ignis described it, over and over again, trying to ingrain in Noctis an appreciation for wine as not just an alcoholic drink but an art form. It took Noctis a little longer than Ignis had hoped to really start to appreciate wine as more than a means to an end but when he did, he could see what the whole fuss was about. Not as much as Ignis could but it was a step in the right direction.

Prompto, on the other hand, was having no trouble at hiding his contorted face. Because he wasn’t trying at all. It looked like he was about to cry. And Noctis really wanted, almost needed, to laugh.

“You alright there, Prom?” Noctis asked after taking another long sip of his wine.

Prompto gulped the rest of his sip down and made exaggerated choking noises. At least Noctis hoped they were an exaggeration. He could see the headlines now: “Altissian Suffocates at Dinner with Crown Prince: Assassination Gone Wrong?”

“I’m totally fine. Completely fine. I am the most fine I’ve ever been in my extremely fine life. Like if you looked up the definition of fine in the dictionary, you would see a picture of me.”

“Something tells me you’re not ‘fine’?” Noctis laughed a little before taking another long sip of his wine. “Red wines take some getting used to for sure.”

“I just can’t believe people ‘get used to’ having their taste buds scream bloody murder and having their throats on fire.”

“You know we can order something sweeter like a white or we could always ask the waitress for that lemonade or that, what did she say? Orange juice.” Noctis had to call upon every muscle and free-thinking brain cell to prevent himself from laughing.

“No, I got this. I may be a lot of things but a quitter I am not,” Prompto resolved before taking a much longer sip. Noctis could see tears begin to form in Prompto’s eyes and how he was very clearly concentrating on not coughing, spitting out his wine, and asking for a lemonade. With extra sugar packets.

“See?” Prompto put down his wine, his hands still shaky. And his insides very clearly dying. “I’ve. Got. This.”

“Sure you do. I basically grew up on red wine with fancy dinners, and we both know I’m basically an expert at those, so I _actually_ have this.”

“Alright, you know what?” Prompto exclaimed, almost throwing his glass onto the table. “It literally tastes like sadness. Like they got the saddest person in the entire world, extracted their emotions, filtered out anything that might be positive at all, and bottled it as ‘red wine’. Like I imagine this is the stuff they serve down in hell to torture the worst kinds of people. Maybe the people that actually like red wine.” He shot Noctis a knowing look before taking the glass and trying to down the rest of it as quickly as he could. He couldn’t.

“Are you done? Because that was a lot.”

“Not yet,” Prompto said, holding up his finger to Noctis while he tried to hold back what was probably a horrific cough or vomit or both. Both were pretty likely. Prompto took another long swig of the red wine, blinked away tears, and cleared his throat. “I will finish this if it’s literally the death of me. And it’s probably going to be literally.”

“You know you don’t have-”

“Like this” - Prompto pointed to the small amount of red wine left in his glass - “feels like someone is grinding burning sandpaper down my throat while also slowly pouring some high-grade concentrated hydrochloric acid. It makes my entire body feel really hot but not in the ‘stay at home by the fireplace roasting chestnuts and drinking hot cocoa’ kind but more like ‘someone poured gasoline down my throat and then decided to throw fifteen lit matches down too and maybe even turned on a freaking flamethrower for good measure’ kind.”

“Wow, that’s a really detailed descrip-”

“And the fact that you can even stand to be in a ten-mile radius of this abomination to grapes everywhere, let alone drink it and actually not want to die and maybe even like it, makes me wonder if this entire summer was a LIE.” Prompto pounded his fist on the table comically, making it shake and almost tipping over both of their glasses and the entire bottle.

“Well, that could have ended pretty badly,” Noctis laughed. “But tell me how you really feel.”

“Noctis, I think our friendship is over.”

“Honestly, me too.” They both looked at each in all seriousness, their eyes squinting. Noctis could only hold the serious face for so long before he broke out into a goofy grin. But Prompto was the first to laugh.

“Let’s just never drink red wine with each other ever again.” Prompto laughed before finishing the last drops of red wine in his glass. “And now, you can’t call me a quitter.”

“That’s not what I would call you.” They both turned to see the waitress next to them, holding their two dishes in her hands. “Oh shoot, you heard that.”

“Do you have a problem with my friend here?” Noctis asked, leaning in closer to her. He was tired of the way that she had treated Prompto, was completely insulted that she would think something like that let alone say it, and was just fed up with having people scrutinize every single person he socialized with. Not like he socialized with many people.

“My apologies, Your Highness,” she replied mousily, placing their dishes in front of them. “I just-”

“You just what? Think he’s not worthy of eating here? Eating with me? Because you’ve been extremely rude and I could march into the kitchen and tell Wesk-”

“No please, it’s-”

“Oh wait!” Prompto interjected, squinting at her name tag and then looking at her face. “I know you.”

“You know her?” Noctis asked Prompto, ready to hear why he shouldn’t just end this woman’s whole career.

“You’re not from Insomnia. You went to Altissia High School and-”

“You got into photography club and took the last spot, yeah.” She looked down at her feet, trying not to meet his eyes.

“So it’s not because I’m a Prince but because you… hate Prompto?”

“I’ll just leave you two-”

“Hey,” Prompto looked into the waitress's eyes, “Faye, I’m sorry you didn’t get into photography club. I didn’t know that I got the last spot. If I would have-”

“No, I’m sorry for being such a bi-”

“Shhhhh,” Prompto placed his hand on hers. “There. There. You go along and help your other tables. Let’s just forget about this whole thing.” He flashed her his pearly white smile and Noctis could practically see Faye melt into that gaze. Like he had stopped himself from doing so many times before.

“Thanks, Prompto,” Faye replied. “And I hope you two have a great dinner. Umm, if you need anything-”

“We’ll call for you,” Prompto smiled. “Oh, but, and I hope this isn’t like super insensitive, but could you take a picture of the two of us?”

“Sure,” Faye took Prompto’s camera. “You know, you were always a really good photographer. Whenever I would try to gossip with the kids still in the club about you, they would say that you were like one of the best photographers in the whole school.”

“Really? Like who?”

“Well,” Faye listed off on her hand, “like Tobin, Faye, Kliff, and… Alm-” she sighed a little.

“Oh my god, those four were such a crew. And Alm wasn’t difficult on the eyes either.” Prompto winked at Faye. “Didn’t you like totally have a huge crush on Al-”

“Say. Chocobo!” She took the picture and handed the camera back to Prompto. “Well, I’ll leave you two to your dinner. It was… nice catching up with Prompto. And, Your Highness.” She gave Noctis a polite nod.

“I did not see that coming,” Noctis said, turning back to Prompto. “I’m surprised it wasn’t about me.”

“You know, not everything that shines under the sun is about you, my dear Noct.”

“And who would have thought that you, out of all people, actually had friends.”

“I was actually very popular in high school,” Prompto shook his head teasingly to Noctis.

“Apparently popular enough to have enemies.”

“What can I say?” Prompto replied, folding his arms behind his head. “People hate to love me and love to hate me. Comes with the territory.”

Noctis rolled his eyes. “Just eat your food.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice.”

* * *

“That was amazing!” Prompto exclaimed as the two of them walked out of Maagho, their stomachs full and spirits high.

“Weskham really pulled out all the stops tonight,” Noctis replied, falling into step with Prompto as they walked towards the marina. Kids rushed past them, holding homemade biodegradable paper lanterns of all shapes, colors, and, clearly, skill level. Some of them looked like a fourth grader had made them. And not just any fourth grader; more like, a deeply-average fourth grader.

“I remember those,” Prompto said, eyeing the plethora of lanterns. “Me and my siblings would always compete to see who could make the best one and our parents would judge.”

“Yeah?” Noctis asked, turning to see Prompto’s expression as he reminisced. “Who would win?”

“Well, we would always tie but I’m sure I was the winner and my parents just didn’t want us to fight.”

“I don’t know,” Noctis replied. “I feel like Benji could give you a run for your money.”

“Oh, so now you’re on his side, huh?” Prompto crossed his arms and walked backward, eyeing Noctis the entire time.

“Excuse me!” A young girl with braided pigtails ran past the two of them, her lantern bouncing in her hand.

Noctis watched her pass, looking forlornly at her as she met up with a group of friends their lanterns in her hand. “I kinda wish I had siblings to have lantern contests with. It can be pretty lonely, being an only child and all.”

“I bet...” Prompto replied. He reached down to pick up a lantern that a running preteen girl had just dropped. “Here you go,” he told her, his blue eyes shining brightly against the small light in the lantern.

She blushed, replied with a mousy thank you and rushed off to tell her friends how a really cute guy with eyes that were a blue that even Leviathan herself would envy held her hand for an eternity, although in reality it was for a mere two seconds at most, and saved her lantern from sheer destruction.

He turned back to Noctis who had digressed into carefully counting the number of cobblestones his right foot skipped in front of his left foot to quiet the thoughts of how cute Prompto was when he handed that girl the lantern. Noctis had always done things like that to quiet the thoughts in his head. From counting the number of clouds in the sky to forget how his dad had yelled at him for Bahamut knows what, to counting how many flicks of his thumb to his index finger he could muster in the time it took to try to erase the sound of screeching tires and the smell of burning rubber from his memory.

“There aren’t lantern festivals like this back in Insomnia?” Prompto asked Noctis.

“There are,” Noctis began, stopping the counting to turn to Prompto. “But I was never able to join in the festivities like the other kids my age.”

“Why not?!” Prompto asked in sheer astonishment.

“I’m a prince. I was supposed to show ‘a fine sense of decorum’ and be a ‘role model for all of Insomnia and Lucis'. Not run around with kids my age. I never missed it _all_ that much,” Noctis rubbed the back of his head as he watched yet another small cluster of kids run by, lanterns in their hands, smiles painted on their faces. “Until now…”

“Why now?” Prompto asked, keeping his eye on all the stalls they passed by.

“I guess I never really saw how much fun it was. Being perched on the highest balcony of the citadel, you don’t really see how fun it can be on the ground.”

“The heavens really do long for the earth,” Prompto stated, almost like a museum curator, reciting a text from a centuries-old religious text.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Noctis asked, softly punching Prompto’s shoulder, quietly grateful for such a far-out statement to ground him back to where he was and, more importantly, from where he wasn’t.

“Noctis come look,” He grabbed Noctis by the wrist, completely ignoring the question and pulled him towards a stall on the side of the sidewalk.

He pointed at the colorful array of lanterns, some begging to know the touch of the Altissian sea, some begging to reach the neverending skies. All colors imaginable were on display, from the deepest blues and purples to the brightest reds and yellows. Each lantern was meticulously crafted, with intricate designs reminiscent of ancient legends on some and beautifully calligraphed text on others.

“I’ll take two of your finest lanterns,” Prompto told the worker, handing her a handful of gil. He then whispered something into the clerk’s ear which made her laugh and shoot Noctis a knowing look. He wasn’t sure if it was because she knew that he was the Crown Prince or if it was something that Prompto had just told her.

“Prompto you don’t have-”

“Pick one, Noct.” Prompto cut him off with a flick of his wrist.

“Okay, Blondie. Thanks.” Noctis gave a closed smiled, thinking about all the lanterns that he had seen floating in front of him all those years atop Insomnia. He never would have thought that he would be here, choosing one for himself. He let his hand feel each lantern that caught his eye, letting the texture of each one permeate through his skin and the colors to shine in his eyes.  “I like... this one.” He carefully grabbed a lantern and held it towards Prompto.

At the exact same moment, Prompto turned around, holding his own lantern. When they realized what had happened, they smiled at each other so brightly that they both thought, unknown to the other, that they would never forget it. They both had grabbed the same lantern. The same color (light beige, the perfect color for light dispersion), the same material (a cross between paper and cloth, the perfect material for the sky, which, unbeknownst to the other, they had each concluded they wanted to do with the lanterns), and most importantly, the same design.

Beginning from the bottom left corner of one of the sides of the rectangular prism, was an etched shooting star, whose trail wrapped each side and ended at the top right corner of the last side. They each chose the shooting star for their own special, most personal reasons. Reasons they both wanted to share with each other that summer, whenever they passed by mothers and their children on the street, mothers and their children in stores, mothers and their children wherever.

“How…” Noctis remarked, stunned at how perfectly they had matched their lanterns.

“Great minds think alike I always say,” Prompto said, holding their lanterns even closer to each other. He turned towards the cashier. “Would you mind taking a picture of us?”

He handed her his camera. Prompto took his place next to Noctis and threw his arm across his shoulder. Noctis followed suit, completely comfortable in the lantern light, in front of a complete stranger, and with his best friend.

“This picture is so great, thanks!” Prompto exclaimed after the girl handed back the camera.

“Let me see,” Noctis said, leaning over Prompto’s shoulder. The two of them looked so happy in the picture, his arm around Prompto’s neck and shoulders. “Wow, that’s awesome.”

“I’ll get it to you,” Prompto replied. “Don’t worry.”

“But how?” Noctis was pretty sure he would never see Prompto again. At least, not like this. When he went back to Insomnia, the entire life he had made in Altissia the past three months would be just memories and stories he would tell a select few. If anyone at all. He would never be able to give these past three months, and the blonde who changed everything, the justice they both deserved.

“You underestimate me, Noct!” Prompto said before leading them away from the harbor where a lot of people were crowding around, ready to place their lanterns in the water.

Noctis wasn’t sure where Prompto was leading him but didn’t mind, and would never mind, following him wherever he went. He mentally gulped when he thought this; he _would_ follow him anywhere. He had become so dependent on their friendship that summer and he wasn’t sure what he was going to do in less than twenty-four hours.

“Follow me,” Prompto said when they reached a staircase that Noctis thought he might have recognized. But there were so many staircases in Altissia that he probably saw it on any of the “adventures” they had gone on that long, hot summer. This particular staircase was strewn with light blue and white flowers and long strings of twinkling lights. Noctis had been admiring the intricacy and thoughtfulness that was put into the swirling flowers up and down the stair rails when Prompto took his hand, interlocking their fingers.

“It’s about to start,” Prompto said, almost in a whisper.

And with that, he led them both up the stairwell, Noctis completely aware of the way Prompto’s hand felt in his. How their fingers were about the same length. How perfect they felt in his. How he never wanted to let go. Not now, not ever. They made it to a balcony that overlooked the entire marina, its railing decorated with the same types of flowers that were on the stairwell, but larger and more full of life. They walked to the railing in a comfortable silence and watched as the streetlights dimmed one by one, towards the Altar of Leviathan.

**_Thank you all for your continued devotion to keeping this centuries-long Altissian tradition alive. It is with your undying devotion to our city and nation that keeps us afloat, both literally and figuratively._ **

A booming voice sounded from across the bay. Noctis recognized the voice as Camelia Claustra, the First Secretary of Altissia. She was standing on the altar, a tiny speck amidst the waters with a voice that resounded through the waves.

Noctis remembered meeting her when he was younger and how intimidating she was to the small, frail boy he was; she was still intimidating, maybe even more so now that he was older and more established. When he was assisting her earlier that summer, she made it very clear that she was disappointed in how little he knew about the inner-workings of politics, the global climate, and basically everything she had learned in her over-thirty years on the political stage. Noctis, however, was only nineteen at the time and knew almost none of the jargon that she threw around in each breath. Which led to some excruciatingly long, awkward, and altogether painful meetings and cold, unwavering stares.

**_As many of you know, there have been many rumors in the past months, but rest assured, the governments of Altissia and Lucis’ first priority is your safety. Know that King Regis, Prince Noctis, Lady Lunafreya, and I..._ **

Noctis recalled sitting in on that one particular government meeting with Camelia and hearing all of the officials talk about Niflheim, the black sheep of the nations. Noctis was still growing in his mother’s womb when the Niflheim-Lucian war had officially ended, with Tenebrae put under Insomnian protection, Altissia remaining an independent nation even without a formal military, and Niflheim scrambling to cut its heavy wartime losses. It wasn’t until Noctis’s senior year of high school when the Niflheim economy finally began to get back on its feet. And now, under the direction of a new Head of Scientific/Military Research and a new Chancellor whose names Noctis failed to remember, there were rumors of an uprising. And if Niflheim were to strike, Tenebrae would be the first to be hit. Then Altissia who would lay defenseless without the intervention of Lucis or Leviathan herself.

_-_

**_… and we thank you. With that, I welcome you all to participate in Altissia’s longest standing tradition: The Lanterns of Levithan Festival._ **

“Ready?” Prompto asked him, gesturing towards the crowds below, perched on the water’s edge, and then the people on other balconies like theirs, ready to lift their lanterns into the beautiful and dark night sky. “It’s going to be unforgettable.”

A gong resonated through the air and the lanterns were off. The two of them quickly lit their lanterns with a lighter that Prompto took out of his camera bag not two seconds before the gong. And on the same breath, they let go of them and watched as their twin shooting stars flew off into the night sky to join all the other lantern in the most exquisite of dances.

“Wow,” Noctis breathed out, awestruck as he looked out at all the lanterns that were floating in the air and on the water. The lights from each lantern, although not enough by themselves to light anything further than a couple of inches, were able to light up the entire bay, together. Noctis thought about that as he watched Prompto and his lanterns get lost in all the others, becoming one with the sky.

He turned to Prompto staring at him, trying to read Noctis’ expression. Was he happy? Elated? Disappointed?

Noctis smiled at him, hoping it would convey how the lanterns, although physically just biodegradable paper material, was everything and more than he could have asked for. Prompto smiled back and Noctis swore at that moment, in the lantern skylight, he could see everything in Prompto’s eyes.

He saw his past, his present, and his future. He saw himself sitting on the deck of a sailboat, with Prompto at the helm, a captain’s hat haphazardly thrown on his head and the ocean breeze lightly spraying them both. He saw Prompto, face behind his camera, squatting to get the perfect shot of Noctis doing whatever, wherever, whenever. He saw them holding hands down a quiet Altissian street and Prompto bending down to pick up a rock to skip on the still harbor water. He saw them where they were meant to be:

Together.

“Noct, what are you th-”

Noctis interrupted Prompto, right when the first of the fireworks burst in the sky and pressed his lips on his. Noctis closed his eyes, and melted into that one kiss, missing the flurry of colors that were accenting the sky full of lantern stars. The burst of blues and reds and pinks and Chocobos and Moogles were nothing compared to how Prompto’s lips felt on his, like they belonged. Noctis bent into Prompto, leading him to the railing, holding on like they were the only two people in the world. His hands found their way up Prompto’s back, feeling its curvature and the way his shoulders shuddered. His fingers laced themselves in Prompto’s blond, Chocobo-butt hair and slowly studied how it felt within his grasp. It was the softest and most amazing thing he had ever felt.

Noctis opened his eyes at the sound of another loud blast of fireworks and took in everything. The blue eyes and blonde hair right in front of him, not even inches away. He saw glowing porcelain skin and a flowing white gown

He saw Luna… Not Prompto.

Luna, his girlfriend.

The girl who helped him find the strength to walk again. The girl who showed him his magic was not just a weapon, but a sign of everything he was and destined to become. The teenager he wrote to when school was especially difficult or his father had been exceptionally harsh. The woman who he said he loved. The woman he was bound to eventually marry among a sea of sylleblossoms. The woman he thought he loved.

Definitely not the boy he had just kissed with more passion than he had ever kissed anyone before. Not the boy who showed him how to let go of his past and embrace his future. Not the boy who almost got him killed within days of meeting him and who remembered his particular iced coffee order the second time he walked into his cafe. Not the boy who made him laugh in every conscious cell in his body and see the world in burning color and no longer in shades of gray.

Not the boy his heart was breaking for.

“Noct,” Prompto said, lost for breath when Noctis pulled away.

Noctis stepped back, shaking his head. “No, I can’t.” He said looking up into Prompto’s eyes. They looked so much like Luna’s. Or did Luna’s look so much like Prompto’s? How did they both have the same shade of light blue in their eyes? How did they both have such similar blonde hair? How had it come to this?

“Prompto, I’m sor- sorry,” he stammered.  “Thanks for the best summer of my life.” He turned and breathed out, unable to look Prompto directly in the eyes any longer. “But I have to go.”

“Noctis, wait!” Prompto exclaimed, reaching to grab his wrist. He missed Noctis’s wrist by a hair.

“Forget about me,” Noctis said as he turned around to look at Prompto one last time. He tried to remember the freckles on his cheeks and the way the lanterns reflected in his confused and sad eyes. In a millisecond, they would all be gone forever. “Please. I’m sorry.”

And then Noctis ran.

Through the maze of flower-laden corridors and walkways, bounding down staircases like his life depended on it. But the floral charm that once charmed Noctis into a lover of summer was gone. Every petal reminded him of sylleblossoms, the flowers that Luna loved, the flowers that he promised to show Prompto one day. The lanterns were garish reminders of the nights he had spent walking with Prompto to the sounds of street musicians and gondoliers. Nights he should have been writing Luna, not imagining kissing his newfound best friend. If he could even call him his best friend anymore.

He made it back to Maagho, sweating, out of breath, and tears streaming down his face. He rushed past Weskham who was whipping up a dessert for Noctis’s birthday, but Noctis didn’t care. He ran into his room and found Luna’s letters on his desk, strewn everywhere. But what he really noticed, what really got his attention, was the scrapbook. He opened it to his favorite picture: the two of them sprawled out on Prompto’s floor playing King’s Knight, potato chips, and Oreo’s around them. With his other hand, he picked up the sylleblossom that Luna sent him at the beginning of the summer, kept alive and beautiful by her magic.

“Carby,” Noctis sighed out as he flopped down on his bed and grabbed his best friend, his only best friend now probably. One he could never wrong. “How did my life come to this? Luna and Prompto. I didn’t even really have friends before this summer, besides Iggy and Gladio but you know they don’t really count, and now - AHHH.”

He threw his face into his pillow and screamed. “Kissing Prompto felt so good. Like it’s what I was meant to do. But Luna, how could I do this to her? She loves me. I love her. I know I love her, right?”

He turned to Carby who sat on the bed, staring at him with his stoic but loving eyes. “But kissing Prompto wasn’t anything like kissing Luna. Oh God. I’m a liar and a cheater. What kind of Prince - no - what kind of person am I?” Carby didn’t respond. “The worst kind.”

Carby stared back at him, his ruby shining brighter than it had in a very long time.

“All I know is that I really like, no, stop lying to yourself, Noctis. I love Prompto, and I also love Luna. I do love Luna, right? Of course, you do, stupid. She’s Luna. But I love Prompto too.”

“What have I done?” He cried into Carby like he had done so many times before. “What do I do?”

  



	5. How First Days are Always the Worst

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay okay okay. I'm so sorry it's been lit rally eons since I've posted! I went on a two-week vacation (Seattle and Alaska omg they were AMAZING) and then I started at my job full-time so that's taken up a lot of my time. (Not the fact that I've been obsessed with a certain Fire Emblem Warriors game for the past two weeks and refused to do anything besides play that even if it meant "forgetting" to eat. Yikes. Anyway! I'm newly committed to pumping this fic out to all of you and I'm really hoping you like this new chapter as we head into the next chunk of the story! Like always, please feel free to drop comments and share this with your friends, loved ones, not-so-loved ones, and pets. kthxbai

 

Noctis burst into the classroom, iced coffee and hastily stuffed bookbag in one hand, skateboard in the other. The entire class turned in shock at the disheveled prince, his usually unbrushed hair even more unkempt than usual and a newfound gash on his forehead front and center. Their stares made Noctis shudder and his cut sting even more than it already did.

“Good of you to join us, Your Highness,” the woman at the front of the lecture hall said with a cool demeanor, her eyes slightly closed. Her long black gown brushed the floor slightly, followed by a long white shawl that draped around her arms. “Please, take your seat and try not to disturb the class again.”

“Sorry, Professor,” Noctis replied sheepishly, before trying to find an empty seat in the packed lecture hall. Everyone’s piercing eyes shot right through Noctis’ skin as he walked up the stairs, heading for the one open seat in the middle of an aisle. Annoyed students picked up their backpacks and pulled their laptops closer to them as Noctis shuffled in front of them. Many apologies were uttered as he finally made his way to the seat. He sat down and tried, in vain, to not let everyone’s conspicuous stares keep him from paying attention in the short amount of time left in the lecture. As his laptop powered on, he thought back to that morning and exactly why he was twenty minutes late to a one-hour lecture.

BEEP BEEP BEEP. WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP. BEEP BEEP BEEP.

“Five more minutes, Iggy,” Noctis grumbled before taking his pillow and pulling it around his ears.

BEEP BEEP BEEP. WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP. BEEP BEEP BEEP.

“Iggy! I said five more-” Noctis yelled, sitting up and rearing to throw his pillow ammo at his quote-on-quote friend who clearly didn’t understand what the phrase, “five more minutes,” meant. “Oh.” There was no one there. Not even his new roommate, Libertus, who had unceremoniously left his dirty clothes on the floor, creeping dubiously close to Noctis’ side. “That’s right. I’m at school. And this is my dorm… And that’s Libertus’ dirty underwear on the floor.”

Noctis hit the off button on his alarm clock harder than he had ever done before. He mumbled something sleepily about changing the alarm sound when he got home. He took one step off the bed and shuddered. Under his bare foot was something slimy, a bit warm and definitely not something he wanted to wake up to. He warily bent down and found a half-eaten slice of pizza tucked under a greased, stained pair of Lil’ Malbuddy boxers.

“So help me Astrals, I will kill Libertus,” Noctis said out loud before throwing both the wasted slice of pizza and the gross undergarments in the trash can. If Libertus really cared about his clothes, he would not have put Astral-awful food on them. How did Noctis end up with probably the sloppiest, most repulsive, dirtiest, grossest, and all other disgusting and vomit-inducing adjectives combined roommate of all time?. 

“I see, you really cannot take a taste of your own medicine.”

Noctis turned to see a young man with thick-framed glasses, somehow naturally spiked hair, and a casual yet still formal blazer suit combo on. “Do you see what I have to deal with here, Iggy?” Noctis asked his retainer/gay best friend before rummaging through his small closet for his usual jacket combo. The same one _he_ had bullied him about the day they first met and the last day that summer. 

“What I do see is that you are,” Ignis began, pushing his glasses further up his nose bridge to get a better survey of the disheveled room and prince. 

“A.    Wearing the same thing you always wear, even though you have a whole closet of clothes that you and I, but mostly me, picked out for your first year.

“B.    Living in the same way you used to live in your apartment during your senior year of high school, dirty underwear on the floor, uneaten pizza?” Ignis carefully picked up another slice of pizza, shuddered, and threw it into the nearest waste receptacle that was almost full with whatever Libertus had been eating last night while Noctis was asleep. 

“And C. You haven’t even opened the planner that Iris and I picked out for you last week. I bet you don’t even know when you’re first class is.”

“You know what Iggy,” Noctis replied while pushing things around his desk looking for his hairbrush. “This is what I think about your A’s, B’s, and C’s.” He turned around and threw a wad of crumpled paper at Ignis, hoping to catch him off guard. Ignis deftly caught the ball of paper and uncrumpled it. “Lucky catch,” Noctis said before going back to his search. “And for your information, Ignis. I have opened my planner. I put my name in it.”

“And you must have also put in that you have class in ten minutes across campus?” Ignis asked, reading the wrinkled paper that Noctis had thrown at him. “You threw your class schedule at me, Your Highness.” Ignis gave a wry smile at the end of his statement, knowing how much it irked Noct.

“Of course, I knew that.” He did not. “But can you refresh my memory like where it is, who’s teaching it… and what the class is, that would be great.”

“I guess the summer really didn’t change much for you, except maybe your newfound sock tan.” Ignis laughed, returning the schedule to the hapless prince.“You have Intro to Cosmogony, COS1 taught by Dean Gentiana in Somnus Hall, which, as you know or didn’t know by the look on your face, is in West campus. We’re in East campus, keep up Noctis please.”

Noctis nodded quickly, while hastily packing his bookbag with his laptop, a crisp new notebook, a couple of pens, and- he stopped when he saw the Chocobo engraved scrapbook peeking out from under his bed, tucked behind a few stray, mismatched socks. He sighed, remembering both the immeasurable amount of fun he had that summer and the immeasurable amount of sadness he had on the trip back. He could still feel the kiss on his lips, the way _his_ lips felt against his. And the way Luna appeared to him at that moment. He still hadn’t called her, even though he had been back for a month, for reasons still unclear to him.

“Noctis, are you still there? You better leave now, or you’ll be even later than you’re definitely going to be.”

“Huh?” Noctis asked, silently putting the scrapbook back under the bed and hiding it under the socks. He looked at Ignis’ disappointed gaze, his green eyes fixated on Noctis’ bag which was still under-packed and disorganized. “Don’t worry Iggy, I know where I’m going. COGS 1, Dean Gaius, in Somalia Hall in North Campus.” He stared back at Ignis with all seriousness, until he eventually cracked a smile and laughed.

“Noctis, what am I going to do with you?” He looked at his watch and laughed. “You’re so late but you are the prince so…”

“Ignis, I gotta go!” Noctis replied, taking his bookbag which still didn’t have everything he needed, and began for the door where he had left his skateboard the previous night after flying through campus, not a care in all of Eos.

“Here,” Ignis started, catching Noctis before he had both feet out the door. “I brought you some coffee from the café on campus.” Ignis handed him a large iced coffee, “You’re going to need it. I’ve read your ENTIRE class schedule, you know. Hopefully, you have too.”

“Did you remember to get-“

“Soy milk, two pumps of caramel, one of vanilla, and light ice.” They both said at the same time. Some things never change.

“You remembered. Thanks, Iggy.” Noctis replied, taking the coffee cup from his hand. He took a sip and winced a little. “Dang, not as good as the coffee in Altissia.” A little more bitter, a little less sweet. But was it just the flavor, or something else entirely?. 

“You know, you never told us about your summer,” Ignis noted. “Gladio and I have been curious for a while. And Altissia-“

“Maybe after class. But like you said, I’m going to be late!” Noctis cut him off, both so he could actually try to make it to class before the class ended and so he could avoid questions about the summer for the umpteenth time. He ran out of his dorm, leaving the dumbfounded Ignis by his desk, and rushed towards where he thought his class might be. Maybe he should really start listening to Ignis. Ignis was the one who had graduated a year early and was on his way to becoming one of Insomnia’s best neurosurgeons or ophthalmologists or whatever kind of rich doctor he wanted to be. 

 

* * *

 

“Now that I’ve covered the outline of what we will be learning this quarter, we will begin to dive deeper into lesser touched upon aspects of Cosmogony, which although particular and seemingly inconsequential to your everyday life, will speak to how you as citizens of Eos can act and react to things and events around you. From preventing senseless wars akin to the Astral War of Yore to the concept of love and devotion, between a man and a woman, woman and a woman, man and a man.” Dean Gentiana lectured from the front of the classroom. 

Noctis’s ears perked up from hearing the latter part of her teaching. He had never heard anyone of his teachers mention non-heterosexual couples in any class, not even the compulsory health classes all Insomnians were forced to endure with awkward teachers trying to teach awkward teenagers about awkward stuff.

His gash on his forehead began to sting again and he slowly reached for his coffee to not cause more of a disturbance. He pressed the still cold drink on his forehead which did little to soothe the pain. While trying to focus less on his screaming forehead and more on Dean Gentiana who was now showing a large-scale map of Eos on the projector, Noctis remembered exactly how he had hurt his head.

 

Noctis was flying through the quad on his skateboard, taking intermittent sips of his subpar coffee. He was ruminating on the summer, on how the feelings he may or may not have for _him_ , and how it could potentially destroy the fabric of Insomnia itself. And how he hadn’t told anyone about what happened that last night, amid the fireworks, and glistening water.

Not even Ignis, even though he knew deep down Ignis would be okay with it, maybe even thrilled. Ignis had been “out” since he was fourteen years old and nobody really cared. In fact, people even said they expected it given how organized he always was, how well he dressed, and the fact that he could tell you the difference between a macaron and a macaroon in his sleep. Ignis retorted to those allegations by saying they were extremely stereotypical and overshadowed what being gay really means and that you can’t just assume someone’s gay because they know how to perfectly bake a souffle, canelé, and crème brulee and still look good while doing it. Of course, given the fact that he is 100% gay kinda overshadowed his diatribe against gay stereotypes. But don’t tell him that unless you want a perfectly baked pie to the face. 

Maybe he was scared about what Gladio might think. Gladio was what many would describe as a “man’s man.” He worked out like 25/8, can do standing push-ups while having full-on conversations, and probably pick up a whole Garula and throw it a mile away, all without breaking a sweat. That last one might be an exaggeration but no one really knows or is brave enough to ask. He’s just that muscular. And being gay, well, isn’t that “manly.” Maybe Gladio would be mad, or disappointed in him. But really, that didn’t make much sense given that Ignis and Gladio were extremely close and Gladio had never once said a bad word about Ignis and him being gay. Except for the one time Ignis spilled a whole pot of chili on Gladio’s shoes. 

He couldn’t tell Luna about what happened at the end of summer for obvious reasons. How does one just casually mention the fact that he kissed a boy, knowing full well that he was in a relationship? She would be devastated. He would be devastated. Everyone would be devastated. Noctis and Luna were the Insomnia Weekly’s favorite couple. They were royalty. He could never tell her. But he also knew that, in the end, she would still love him if she found out. She was always there for him and maybe she would realize he would need her then, more than ever. 

Noctis knew deep down why he hadn’t talked about that summer with anyone. It wasn’t Ignis or Gladio, or even Luna. 

It was his father. King Regis. The thought of his stoic, emotionless eyes burned into Noctis’ head, instilling a fear that not even the Killer Wasps created. What would his dad think? Sure, two of his council members are gay and one of them had even helped take care of the young prince after his mother died. And Noctis couldn’t even count on both of his hands how many of the castle workers from servants to guards were a part of the LGBTQ+ community.

But what would his father think about his only son and the one person who could continue the family bloodline being attracted to guys? He wouldn’t biologically be able to have children with another guy. And there would go their magical bloodline that had survived for like two thousand years in one gay swoop. Obviously, not a big deal. It’s not like the Lucis Caelum family had helped usher in a new era of peace to all of Eos and was almost single-handedly responsible for the oversight of an entire nation. If the family line ended with him, well, that would not go over well. With his father. With the public. With the Astrals. With the universe.

And maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t even attracted to guys. Maybe it was just a huge mistake. He was pretty caught up in the reverie of the fireworks, the finality of that night. Why would he bring up all that if he wasn’t entirely sure if it was true? He had never felt this way about guys before. Although, he had never felt too strongly towards girls either, except for Luna, right?

He was so lost in these thoughts all alone he did not notice the cart driving in front of him. When he finally looked up, determined to push _him_ as far from his mind as possible, it was too late.

He swerved to the right to get out of the way of the unsuspecting cart. His skateboard shook under his feet at the sharp turn and flew out from underneath him. Noctis floated in the air for what seemed like an eternity and fell forward into the nearby shrubbery. His hands went out instinctively to catch his fall, leaving his face vulnerable to the sharp branches.

Noctis picked himself up off the ground, surrounded by the shrubs and noticed a bit of blood on one of the branches. His forehead stung, and he knew immediately that it was his blood on the branch in front of him.

“Dang it,” Noctis said as he spit out a twig from his mouth. “I’m already late for class and now-“ He pulled a much longer twig from his hair, prompting a couple of leaves to float down to the ground. “Great way to start my first day of school.”

He picked up his book bag which, miraculously, was spared from a lot of damage. Even his iced coffee survived the onslaught of branches and leaves. Astralbucks might not have the highest caliber of coffee, but their patented spill-proof cups made of 100% biodegradable material was no joke. He brushed off the last of the leaves from his clothes and got right back on his skateboard. He took a sip of his iced coffee and continued on his way across campus, still painfully aware of the stinging in his forehead and the ticking of his watch, reminding him how late he still was to class.

He decided then and there that he would never think about gay stuff while riding his skateboard again. Or ever again in any situation. Reasonable.

 

* * *

 

“Does anyone have any thoughts? Prince Noctis?”

Noctis’s head flew up, painfully unaware of what was happening in the class. Everyone’s eyes were on him again. Of course, Dean Gentiana would decide to call on him in a lecture hall of over two hundred students. And of course, it happened to be right when he had put his head down on his desk to try to ease the pounding in his head. And of course, he wasn’t paying attention at all.

Why would he need to pay attention when someone went on and on about Ifrit and Shiva and Bahamut when he could basically recite everything from memory? After all, they had literally given him their magic. Now just to meet them in real life and his childhood dream would finally be fulfilled. Oh, how nice it would have been to go back to then. And be anywhere but there.

“Uh…” He stammered, trying to compose himself. “Could you repeat the question?”

That elicited quiet laughter from his peers whose eyes bore into him like a shard of Shiva’s ice. Dean Gentiana gave a sly smile before repeating herself. “We were discussing how Ifrit left his lover, Shiva, to save all of humanity and damn himself. And I asked, to no hands from any of you-“ Gentiana’s gaze scanned the entire room, instilling any icy fear into the students who were so quick to laugh at poor Noctis. “-if anyone might have any thoughts on why Ifrit would so such a thing.”

“Well…” Noctis said, trying to access his memories of the love shared between Ifrit and Shiva. Noctis knew quite a bit about Eosian history and a lot about the Astral War. But whenever anybody brought up romance of any kind, especially during his formative years, he would tune them out entirely. What kind of seven-year-old boy wants to hear about a blue lady and a red guy like kissing and stuff? Not Noctis. Ever. Even when _he_ was gushing about it on those early days of summer, Noctis hadn’t been paying that much attention to his words, just his mouth. “Maybe Ifrit… uh… Well… Didn’t he like create humans? Wait… no…” More snickers from his peers. Dean Gentiana gave the hall another icy stare, this time with more glacial anger. Noctis gulped, everyone’s stares and judgment encasing him in a cocoon of self-consciousness. “Uhhh…. Pass?”

“I think what Prince Noctis meant to say,” a voice came from near the front of the hall. Most of his peers turned their attention to the new voice, while some kept their stares on poor Noctis. Why? Noctis had a few ideas. “Is that Ifrit and the other Astrals created humans after themselves, making their bonds with their creations, us, an extremely strong one. Sure, Ifrit and Shiva had a beautiful love story that transcends time and space and all that, as most of us have been told time and time again, but not many people talk about the bond between creator and creation. Something like parents and child. And maybe for Ifrit, this bond between himself and his children was stronger than the bond he had with Shiva, even if they were in love. Which then begs the question as to why the other Astrals didn’t fight for us, given that we were supposedly shaped in their image, if not their likeness.” 

Noctis craned his neck to get a better view of the speaker, his savior. The front row was packed with many students, no empty seats in sight as they probably got there on time or even early. Almost all of them had black or black-ish hair, guys and girls. But there was one student with blonde hair. And that iconic Chocobo-butt tuff in back. 

“Oh, Shi-” the girl next to him turned in shock, “-va.”

“That was very insightful,” Dean Gentiana said, pleased with his answer. “Mr...?”

“Prompto Argentum!” He replied, clearly excited about how well his answer went over. Hearing that name out loud for the first time in weeks made Noctis quake more than Dean Gentiana’s icicle stare.

“I hope you all,” Dean Gentiana scanned the room again. She made direct eye contact with Noctis, her eyes completely open, revealing their olive-green hue. “Take what Mr. Argentum said to heart and look back at what you may or may not have learned about Cosmogony in your earlier education or life. You’ll soon learn that what you thought you knew, what you learn in this class, and what you will learn outside of this class will very rarely add to the same conclusion. I hope to add just another piece to your arsenal of knowledge to become the people you are meant to become.” 

She took a deep breath and Noctis could swear the room dropped a few degrees. Then he turned his head out of habit and saw the chocobo tuff again. The room got immensely hotter and if Noctis didn’t know any better, he would have thought that Ifrit was resurrected and decided to make his first appearance in eons. He gulped. 

 

* * *

 

“Your Highness, a word?” Dean Gentiana said as the class started to file out of the room. How she was able to pick Noctis out of upwards of three hundred students in the lecture hall was a mystery to him.

“Yes, of course.” He replied, on edge.

“I do hope that your tardiness today was a singular anomaly and will not turn into a repeat occurrence.” Her icy stare chilled Noctis to the bone as it had all those years before.

“Oh, of course!” Noctis started, his palms beginning to sweat. “You see, I wrote down the time and place of this class wrong in my planner,” (lie) “and then I was rushing over here and I didn’t see this cart and then I swerved and flew off my-” (truth)

“Oh, Noctis you always ramble on so much when you’re nervous.”

Noctis turned to see where this new, light voice came from. “Luna?” Luna strode over to them with a grace that only she carried. Her perfectly kept blonde hair in a ponytail and her white blouse emanating an aura of calm. At least that’s what Noctis always imagined.

“Oh,” Luna raised her hand near Noctis’s forehead. “That is one nasty cut.” She closed her eyes. “Cura.” A faint white light exuded from her outstretched hand and wrapped itself in and out of the cut, both suturing and healing it. “There we go. Please be more careful. I might not be around all the time to take care of you like when we were children.” She smiled.

“Thanks, Luna. I will be sure to watch where I skateboard from now on.” 

“And that skateboard,” She shook her head down at the skateboard lying on the ground next to Noctis. Its Bahamut graphic on top was hand-drawn by one of Insomnia’s foremost tattoo artists. “You know how I- oh well.” Luna turned to Dean Gentiana. “Wonderful lecture as always, Gentiana. But who would have doubted that?” She gave the dean a warm hug and the ice in the room began to thaw.

“Hello, Luna,” Gentiana replied with a slight smile. “I am glad you enjoyed it. I hope you took copious notes as well because I am hoping that you will take over completely by the sixth week of the quarter. Sooner than we discussed but I hope you will be alright with that.”

“That sounds wonderful. I would love that. The more practice I can get with lecturing the easier it will be when I, fingers crossed and Astral blessing, graduate.”

“Wait, what?!” Noctis asked, lost in almost every sense of the word. “What’s happening?”  
Luna and Gentiana laughed a little before Luna began. “I was recently hired as the TA for this class as a part of my Ph.D. program, Noctis. I would have written to you about it but it was last minute.”

“Wait, but why aren’t you teaching the rest of the quarter Ge- Dean Gentiana?” Noctis asked, finally starting to wrap his head around the situation. Especially the fact that:

  1. His girlfriend was right next to him at that very moment
  2. She had been in the same lecture hall with him and saw him stumble in. 
  3. She was in the same lecture hall as him and _him_.
  4. The fact that she didn’t know that he had kissed _him_ at all and with more passion than he had ever kissed her with.



And E. All the compartmentalizing he had accomplished was about to, if it hadn’t already, come crashing down more epically than the Meteor did on the Disc of Cauthess.

“I can see what you mean by him being nervous, Luna” Dean Gentiana laughed, “But you were always this way, Your Highness.”

“Especially when it came to adults,” Luna added, laughing with Dean Gentiana. “Do you remember when he used to squeal when he had to order food at restaurants without his dad?”

“Ah yes, and the times when your mother, may she rest in peace, would come into the room and he would sit up straighter-”

“And a tiny bead of sweat would form right here,” Luna reached over to the right of Noctis’s forehead. “And-”  
“As fun as ganging up on Noctis is,” Noctis interjected, willing all of his nerves to interrupt his girlfriend, probably soon-to-be professor, and his actual professor. “I’m still extremely lost and probably need to be somewhere.” He looked at his watch to make it seem like he had somewhere to be when in fact his next class was in three hours, in the next lecture hall over. He didn’t just want time; he needed it.

“Apologies, Your Highness,” Dean Gentiana began, curbing back more lighthearted laughter. “You see, I will be leaving the university in a few weeks to assist some colleagues in Tenebrae and Luna is more than qualified to continue teaching the course.”

“Your confidence in me is always appreciated, even if it may be misplaced.”

“Well, Luna, with surprisingly adept students like that Mr. Argentum, I believe this class will teach itself in the end.”

“His participation in class was notice-” 

“Is there anything else or can I go? I have class soon.” Noctis lied through his teeth, trying his hardest to hide the fact that he was trembling internally and, if left unchecked, would be externally. He, in no circumstance, wanted to think about this, let alone hear his girlfriend and her mentor/his professor/long-time family friend talk about _him_ with his messy, yet perfect blond hair. And his picturesque blue eyes. And-

“Oh, yes, there is,” Dean Gentiana replied. “I wanted to remind you that, even though you may be the Crown Prince, you will not be receiving any special treatment from myself or Miss Lunafreya.” There was the ice again. Right on schedule.

“I wouldn’t want it any other way,” Noctis replied, although he knew any chance of going by unnoticed, or at least relatively unnoticed, went out the window the second he walked in. “But then could you not call me ‘Your Highness,’ at least not in front of the whole class? Noctis works, or Noct for short.”

“Noct?” Luna asked, “So you have a nickname now? I guess Altissia really did change you.”

Noctis smiled nervously. Had Altissia changed him that much?

“I understand the sentiment… Noctis,” Dean Gentiana replied before reaching into her messenger bag. She pulled out a manila folder, quickly perused the contents, and handed it to Noctis. “Also, I need you to deliver this to your father.”

“What is it?” Noctis asked, running his fingers along the opening of the folder, daring to peek at its contents. 

“Please keep this between yourselves,” Dean Gentiana looked to Noctis and Luna. Noctis even speculated that she wasn’t looking at them exactly, but rather through them as she had always done when they were growing up. “They are documents and research I compiled pertaining to the growing resistance from Niflheim and other Niflheim-sympathizing factions. And, to be completely honest, one of the main reasons I will be leaving halfway through the quarter.”

“Tenebrae _has_ been on alert for a while,” Luna said. “Ravus has been even more incorrigible lately if you can believe that.”

“It is imperative that your father gets this tonight, if possible.” 

“I wasn’t planning on going home tonight but-”

Students for the next class began to file in the lecture hall, buzzing with first-day jitters that Noctis had had earlier that day. Dean Gentiana smiled at the both of them, whispered a closed-eye good-bye, and walked away so quickly and quietly that she actually seemed to float. She was just the way Noctis remembered her, always coming and going as she pleased with a grace not known to this world. But now with the added air of professor/dean/political liaison?-ship. 

 

* * *

 

“Well, she left in a hurry,” Noctis said to Luna as they walked out of the lecture hall, their hands dangling close enough to touch. They didn’t hold hands though because of him holding the folder; at least that’s what he told himself. It surely wasn’t because, only a few feet away, the blond hair of his dreams and, maybe more accurately nightmares, was messing around with a campus map, very clearly lost. Noctis gulped.

“Oh, Noctis your father said that we three are having dinner tonight,” Luna said as she unknowingly led them to the boy that Noctis dreaded more than the thought of the Starscourge. (Although that was clearly an exaggeration because daemons and a never-ending night? Yikes.)

“What? When?” This was news to Noctis. He hadn’t seen his father since the day after he returned from Altissia and that was only to drop off a gift from Weskham. The less he saw of his father, the better. He was so thrown off by the thought of seeing his dad that he didn’t hear:

“Noct?!”

Noctis looked up to see _him_ there, clearly overjoyed to see him, or maybe just for seeing some that he recognized.

“Oh!” Noctis exclaimed, so surprised that he dropped the folder, scattering a couple of the papers inside on the ground.

“Noctis, be careful,” Luna said as she squatted down to grab all the papers off the ground. “Gentiana and your father would be livid if any of these were lost. Not even mentioning the danger that-”

“Wait, you’re Lady Lunafreya!” Prompto said, cutting her off. He excitedly shook her hand, seemingly out of breath. “You’re like so much prettier in person and just - oh my gosh wow - you’re here too. Nobody pinch me because I’m totally dreaming but it’s fine, everything is literally fine!” 

“Well, hello there,” Luna replied, with much more grace than Noctis would have had. “I recognize you from class. Prompto Argentum, correct?”

Prompto’s face could not hold in the excitement, his mouth opening wide. “Oh, my Gods. You recognize me and you know my name!”

Luna politely chuckled at Prompto’s amusement, covering her mouth with her hand. “You gave a very insightful answer in lecture today. And for the first day, at that.” She smiled at Prompto, clearly making him ooze with joy from the inside out. “I was thoroughly impressed.” 

She turned to Noctis who was desperately trying to avoid both of their blue eyes. “If only Noctis - I mean, Noct, had the same insight as you did in class.”

“Yeah,” Noctis replied, quietly, trying and mostly failing to feign some sense of calm.

Luna turned back to Prompto, either unaware of Noctis’ terror or gracefully ignoring it. Either could be a reasonable explanation. “So, how do you know… Noct? Apologies, in my almost twelve years of knowing him, I had yet to hear anyone call him anything except Noctis, Your Highness, Prince, or a combination of the two.”

“That’s crazy!” Prompto replied, seemingly calmed down from his initial excitement. Seemingly. “I came up with that nickname almost immediately after meeting him!” Prompto laughed, trying to catch Noct’s jittery eyes. “But, I met Noctis on a warm summer day, not unlike this. The sun was shining down and he had entered my cafe for the billionth time to get his meticulously crafted order of iced coffee and-”

“We met in Altissia,” Noctis stated matter of factly, cutting off Prompto’s clear exaggeration of what seemed like the beginning of the end to Noctis then.

“Way to make it sound WAY less epic, dude,” Prompto said, able to sneak in a light punch on Noctis’ shoulder. Noctis shuddered and felt a slight pink rising from his extremities to his face. He had to act quickly.

“Well, it wasn’t that epic.” Noctis retorted, trying his best.

“Well to me, it totally was.” Prompto laughed, turning back to Luna. “But yeah, we met in Altissia and hung out a lot.” 

Noctis knew Prompto wouldn’t have, but he was terrified he would mention the kiss. Or it would come up in conversation, especially given how rambly Prompto was being in the less than two minutes they had been talking.

“I would love to hear more about these adventures,” Luna said, smiling at the both of them. “I’m surprised you did not mention Prompto in any of our correspondences....”

Noctis didn’t know what to say to that in the case he incriminated himself. Which he probably would if he started talking. He did NOT want to fall down that rabbit hole.

“Well, maybe he just didn’t want to let you know that-” Prompto started.

“Anyway!” Noctis interrupted. “Were you lost Prompto?” He pointed at the map still in Prompto’s hand.

“Oh yeah!” Prompto looked down at the map, furrowing his brow. The way that Noctis once thought was cute. (He still very much did but refused to admit it). “I’m looking for, uh, Shiva Hall. This campus is humongous.”

“Well, I’ll leave you to help and catch up with your friend, Noctis,” Luna said. “It was very nice to meet you, Prompto.”

Luna put out her hand for a cordial handshake. Prompto ignored it and gave her a huge hug, catching her off guard. “Oh!”

“Sorry,” Prompto said after letting her go. “I just love hugs.” He was blushing.

“It’s quite alright. I guess I’ve been in Insomnia too long.” She laughed behind her demure hand and turned back to Noctis. “I’ll see you tonight at the citadel then?”

“Yeah…” Noctis replied, suddenly remembering that he would have to see his father so soon. On top of the ticking blond time-bomb next to him and his girlfriend. 

Before he could say anything else, Luna gave him a quick kiss on his cheek and walked away. Somehow every time she walked away from him, Noctis felt a sense of loneliness. Confusing.

“So....” Noctis said, rubbing the back of his neck and took a deep breath. He looked into Prompto’s eyes wanting to see nothing in the ocean within them. To feel nothing. “Hi.”

“Hi, Noct,” Prompto replied. “It’s nice to see you.” 


	6. How No One Was Nervous (But They Really Were)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everybody! I finally got around to writing this chapter! And rewriting it over and over and OVER again. But what was my least favorite chapter ended up becoming one of my favorites to write! So I really hoped you enjoy it. (Especially the cameo that I've been dying to write for so many months.) I would also like to thank all of you that have sent me such amazing comments and kudos; it means so much to me and reminds me why I write my fanfics: for you all to enjoy! Like always, let everyone in your life know about this so I can try to reach as many people as possible with this gay stuff. Talk to you all soon!

 “Eos to Noctis.” Prompto waved his hand in front of Noctis. 

“Sorry,” Noctis replied, blinking his eyes out of his dissociation.

“Thinking about how you want to show me to Shiva Hall?” Prompto laughed, folding his map back up. 

Noctis watched as he put the map back into his black checkered backpack and tried not to focus on his every little movement. From the way Prompto’s hands zipped open his backpack, the way he meticulously slid the map into a Mauve Chocobo folder, the way- he did not want to go any longer with this line of thinking, all the way down. Rabbit holes are no place for a young prince.

“Yeah, exactly.” Noctis rubbed the back of his neck again. “I can- I can do that.” He started off in the direction of the lecture hall, not looking back to check if Prompto was actually following him. The less he actually saw his face, the better.

“Is your neck cold?” Prompto asked, quickly catching up with Noctis, unthinkingly marching him step for step. Like they hadn’t been apart at all. 

“What?” Noctis turned to ask Prompto his question. “I’m not sure what y-“

“You’ve rubbed the back of your neck like a gazillion times.” Prompto turned to meet Noctis’ eyes, cocking his head slightly. He smiled coyly, his eyes doing the same. “Do I make you nervous?”

The color in Noctis’s face drained slowly as the answer to that question dug into every fiber of his being. 

Prompto DID make him nervous: Noctis had kissed him and ran away. He had ruined any chance of a normal friendship. He couldn’t even look in Prompto’s eyes for more than two seconds without every single nerve in his body firing one way or another. How was he not supposed to be nervous?

“Wha- I mean I-” Noctis started, not knowing what might come out of his mouth next. Maybe actual coherent words. Maybe an intelligible string of words that make an understandable sentence. Or maybe just guttural screeches.

“Well, if you are, then don’t be.” Prompto continued, cutting off Noct. “I’ve missed you, dude.”

“Yeah…” Noctis said, averting his eyes to look for the nearest landmark that he could show Prompto that would, hopefully, help Prompto find his way without his help. Or any way out of this conversation, then and ever in the future. The less time around Prompto, the better. “Well…”

“Don’t you remember what I told you the night before the festival?”

“What?” Noctis asked, trying his hardest to remember the night before everything turned to fireworks, lantern-induced flames, and a conflagration of any semblance of happiness. 

“You know when I slept over the night before your birthday? Because I do.”

 

* * *

“Do you ever feel weird?” Prompto asked, lying on Noctis’s floor, his head on the pillow that he had just used to try to decapitate his best friend.

 “Weird?” Noctis asked, looking up at the ceiling fan, absentmindedly counting the number of times the blades moved around and around in their never-ending cycle. He contemplated what would happen if one of the blades, or all of the blades, flew off and scattered all across the room. 

Of course, Noctis felt weird sometimes. He hadn’t had actual friends that he actually picked out almost the entirety of his two decades as the “crown prince of Insomnia, sole heir to the Insomnia throne and continuance of the Lucian bloodline.” Feeling weird wasn’t something he really felt sometimes. It was more like his entire way of life. 

 “Yeah, like,” Prompto took a breath, tracing his hand to the rhythmic circular motion of the fan. “Sometimes I feel like I'm always on the outside.”

“What do you mean?” Noctis sat up slowly, wanting to give Prompto his undivided attention and eye-contact. Not just to stare into his eyes, of course.

“Like today, you know... We were at the arcade, and it was fun, but…” Prompto turned on his side, his eyes meeting Noctis’. He wasn’t smiling but he wasn’t exactly frowning either. “It kinda felt like I was watching it from across the room.” He took a deep breath and looked back up at the ceiling. “I don't know. It feels like there's this invisible line that I have to cross to really be a part of everything and I just, I can't ever really cross it..” He said all of that in, what seemed to Noctis, a single breath.

“Wow,” Noctis said, rubbing the back of his neck. “But you were the one who was so excited about everything and pulled me into the dancing game and all of that. You seemed so sure of yourself out there.”

“That’s just it,” Promptoo huffed out, refusing to meet Noctis’ eyes. “I’ve gotten pretty good at being the complete extrovert, taking charge and making it seem like I’ve got it all figured out. But really, I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“Does anybody ever really?” Noctis rolled over, trying to face Prompto again. He could swear he heard the beginnings of someone trying their best to hold back tears. He would know. “Like, I’m a prince and I still don’t have almost anything figured out… like… “ Noctis looked up, trying to think of something from the plethora of things he didn’t learn in his sheltered citadel upbringing. If given enough time, he could go on for what would seem like years. “I don’t know how to fold laundry or fix a lightbulb or even vacuum - like that noise? Terrifying. And don’t even get me started on making my bed. Like this?” Noctis patted the neatly made bed he was sitting on. “All Weskham.”

Prompto laughed, his slight frown upturning to a kind of smile. Getting to the one that Noctis always liked to see. Sometimes dreamt about, even though he knew he shouldn’t. 

“You know that’s not what I meant, Noct,” Prompto said, trying not to laugh. “But I’m glad we’ve established that I’m the domestic one in this relationship.”

“I know... but it made you smile, right?”

“Noct, that’s supposed to be my job!” Prompto exclaimed. “Wow, I’m a trainwreck right now aren’t I?”

“Not a trainwreck. More like a fender bender.” Noctis dodged Prompto’s pillow, happy that he was getting used to surprise pillow attacks. “But like, what if it’s both of our jobs?” Noctis asked throwing the pillow back at Prompto, unsure of when the two of them had fallen into two distinct happiness giving and taking roles. 

“I like that, Noct. Like we’ll switch off and everything.”Prompto smiled, fully and cheerfully. There it was. 

“Maybe we can even have a schedule and like clock in and out… that’s how jobs work right?”

“I would love to dive into the intricacies of a part-time job but we’re going to talk about me again.”

“Of course, Your Majesty,” Noctis sarcastically replied before getting the same pillow to the head. Learning to dodge cute boy’s pillow assaults isn’t a linear process, apparently. 

“I guess, ever since I was little I was always on the outside looking in. I know it might shock you because of my rocking bod,” Prompto gestured to his abdomen and flexed his arms. Pillow to the face. “Sorry - I wasn’t always this hot.” He blocked the next pillow, with the back of his hand. “I was actually really overweight as a kid and people didn’t really want to hang out with the fat kid with glasses.”

“I didn’t know you wear glasses,” Noctis said. They had known each other for the entire summer and he hadn’t noticed at all. It’s not like they hadn’t spent the night in the same room before, albeit not in Noctis’. 

“I used to, anyway. I’m pretty sneaky when it comes to my contacts. I have to look my best self, you know.”

“There’s nothing wrong with glasses. One of my closest friends, Ignis, wears glasses.” Noctis was reminded of Ignis’s half-rim glasses that were always meticulously clean and spotless. “I bet you’d look cute in glasses.” Noctis didn’t realize he had said it out loud until the last syllable left his mouth.

“Watch yourself, Noct. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were flirting with me.” Prompto winked, sitting up with his legs crossed. 

“Uhhh…”

“Don’t worry, Noct, I’m just teasing you. You wouldn’t flirt with a gay guy on purpose if you didn’t want to get into my pants because that would be pretty messed up.” Prompto winked.

“Wait, you’re gay? But you totally mentioned an ex-girlfriend” Noctis asked, incredulous. Partly to breeze past his weird glasses comment and partly because he needed to know, just to know his best friend better. For no other reason. Clearly. “Not like I don’t approve of it. Like one of my best friends is gay and he’s like totally cool and stuff. Haha.”

“Glad you approve and pulled out the requisite ‘I have a gay friend so I can’t hate gays’ card,” Prompto laughed, “And that it’s ‘totally cool and stuff.’”

“Sorry, I was pretty uncool then, wasn’t I?”

“Pretty uncool, yeah. But it’s chill.” Prompto laughed, trying to break the ice that Shiva herself might have cast upon the whole room. “I’ve dealt with a lot worse from a lot worse people. Comes with the territory.”

Why did Noctis react the way he did? He hadn’t reacted that way when he found out Ignis was gay. He was supportive and great with Ignis but was being so, weird, with Prompto. He didn’t have enough time to ruminate on his inner paranoia before Prompto spoke up again.

“But, yeah,” Prompto sighed out, “I’ve talked about an ex-girlfriend because that’s what she was an, ex. A part of me trying to convince the world and I guess myself that I was straight or at least attracted to girls as well. Poor Cindy never stood a chance against all the boys that she worked with.” Prompto laughed.

“Ha, that’s funny?” Noctis asked sheepishly. He didn’t know what he should laugh at or not. Neither for his or Prompto’s comfort. 

“It’s funny looking back at it now. Cindy was, is, really pretty. And older. And tough.” Prompto smiled. “I bet if she was a dude, I would have liked her the way I should have. It kinda sucks.”

“Sounds like it,” Noctis murmured. He started to realize he might not love Luna the way he should have anymore. When had that stopped? Why has it stopped? And the most terrifying question he could think of, had it ever even begun? 

“When did you realize that you were gay?” Noctis blurted out.

“Well, I guess I’ve known for a really long time…” Prompto started, drifting off. “Like when I was like really little, like three or four, I had crushes on girls and even fake married one. It was a whole thing. The entire preschool class was in on it, we were the ‘it’ couple but the parents got pretty mad. But it was totally worth being the rulers of the playground. Everything the light touched was ours, from the monkey bars to the swings. And don’t even get me started on the sandbox.” Prompto laughed and Noctis tried his best not to wonder what Prompto was like when he was a kid. If they would have gotten along. Noctis has never been that outgoing but Prompto married someone, just to rule a playground kingdom. 

“But then when sex ed came along around grade five I started realizing I was a bit different than the other guys in my class. Like I liked sports and the quote on quote masculine activities. Exhibit A,” he gestured to his arms, which Noctis had noticed over and over that summer. Even if he tried his very hardest not to. “But there was something different. I couldn’t place it back then and thought maybe that everyone had that feeling of being different. I couldn’t put my finger on it but I just knew there was something... off. Of course, it turned out that not everyone had the same feeling of being different I did back then. You still with me, Noct?”  
Noctis had let his head droop a little. Not because he was tired per se but more to hide the conflict on his face. He was trying to remember what he, himself, was thinking during those childhood years and seeing if Prompto’s story matched his. He had always felt different, but he just chalked it up to him being the prince; not because he might have feelings for guys. 

He shot his head back up abruptly. “Yes, sorry I wasn’t falling asleep I swear.”

“Sure…” Prompto nodded his head. Whether or not he believed him was lost Noctis. This wouldn’t be the first time he had read Prompto completely wrong. “Anyway, back to me… but I guess I finally realized I was gay when I moved here to Altissia and I met my former best friend in grade six whose name isn’t important anymore. He and I were really close and I guess I started falling for him. When my dad was away for a while for work in Gralea, he was there for me and I guess he helped me a lot. And then I fell for him. Hard. Like whenever I went to his house after school and we did homework or watched tv, I just wanted to hold his hand, or trace my foot over his ankle, or kiss him while walking his dogs.”

Noctis almost squeaked, thinking about all the similar things he had wanted to do with Prompto. How many times had their hands fallen right next to each other, begging for them to grasp one another? How many times had he wanted to make Prompto stop talking by placing his lips on his, to feel his warmth?

“I was so ‘in love’. At least as much as a prepubescent middle schooler could be. Don’t laugh! I was like thirteen!”

“I’m not laughing!” Noctis lied, happy for something to make him laugh. He remembered a talk he and Prompto had had earlier that summer about prepubescent teens saying they loved each other before their voices had even dropped. “Go on, sorry.” He clearly needed to know how all this ended. 

“Fast forward to the first year of high school, puberty finally hit me and I was finally started to like the way my body looked and I convinced myself that he might actually ‘love’ me back. But long story, aggressively short: he friend-dumped me and we didn’t talk the rest of high school. Word of advice: don’t admit your feelings to someone you don’t know is gay or you might risk being completely ostracized by him and his friends for a whole three years. It got better but I was devastated.”

“Damn, that's rough, dude. I can’t believe he just dropped you like that,” Noctis said. He knew people like that in high school who weren’t exactly okay with gay people but now it hit close to home. “If I knew him back then, I would have destroyed him.”

“Thanks, dude. Next time I need something taken care of, I know who to call. Killer Wasps and mean ex-best friends, be damned. But really, I’m over it. We were young and it was a long time ago. All water under the bridge, as my parents would say. And the last I heard, he was pumping gas somewhere in backwater Cleigne. So I guess I won?”

“Ha, I guess so, like you’re best friends with the prince of Insomnia. I’d call that a win.” 

Prompto rolled his eyes and laughed. 

“So when did Cindy come in?” Noctis asked.

“Well, the summer between junior and senior year of high school, I went with my dad to Lucis for his work. We spent a lot of time in Leide and I ended up in hanging at this cool truck stop, Hammerhead,” That name sounded incredibly familiar to Noctis but he couldn’t put his finger on it. “And I met Cindy who was like five years older than me. I hadn’t come out to my dad yet and so I felt like me being gay wasn’t completely real. So I asked Cindy out and she said yes for some reason. I was already eighteen and she was like twenty-three or something and we ended up dating for the summer.”

“Did you ever… you know…” Noctis asked, fearing the answer. Why did he care if Prompto had had sex with this Cindy girl? It’s not like whether or not Prompto was a virgin made any impact on his own life. He personally had not had sex with Luna yet although it had been brought up quite a bit in their relationship. Both of them had their reasons to do it and not to do it. With the “no’s” always sometimes winning.  And, now looking back at it, they were predominantly Noctis’s “no’s”.

“No, Noct,” Prompto replied. “We didn’t. We just kissed and made out a lot. Like a lot. So much.” Prompto grimaced a little. Pillow dodged. “Ha, now you’re out of pillows and I have all of them.” He laughed and threw one back at Noctis, hitting him right on the forehead. “10 points for Team Argentum!”

“You’re such a little kid,” Noctis said, rubbing his head, feigning injury. 

“Anyway,” Prompto cleared his throat, “We’re almost at the end of my amazing, interesting, never-before-heard story. I think Cindy realized she wasn’t right for me and I wasn’t right for her. Maybe it’s because I never got, you know, that ‘excited’ during out kissing sessions, unless I was thinking about this other mechanic boy who had been hired that summer. Cindy let me down gently, saying things like I was too young and was going back to Altissia soon and that she wasn’t in the right headspace for a relationship. You know all those ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ excuses. Even though we both totally knew it was me and the fact that she was a she.”

“Were you sad about it?” Noctis asked. 

“In a way,” Prompto sighed and then looked up at the ceiling. “I guess I was sad that I couldn’t just magically not be gay. That was until…”

“Until what?”

“That older mechanic boy,” Prompto sighed dreamily, placing his head in his hands. 

“What about him…” 

“He had the most beautiful, deep-blue hair, and the coolest birthmark on his upper right arm and his arms were even nicer than mine. And his voice was perfectly deep, like not too deep or too high. Like it was so reassuring and safe. Oh, Chrom…”

“That… sounds like a video game character’s name,” Noctis said, “Weird.”

“Like Noctis is a regular name.”

“Or Prompto.”

“Anyway, back to me…”

“Oh, my Gods… you’ve said that like a thousand times in this one story.”

“Ohhh, Your Highness doesn’t like my storytelling.”

“Well maybe don’t get off track and think about guys while I’m right here.”

“Why? Because you’re jealous???” Prompto raised and lowered his eyebrows suggestively.

“Oh, my Gods…” Was he jealous? He didn’t want to know the answer to that.

“And if you’re wondering why I even brought up the handsome Chrom, I’m going to get into that now and as he is a big part of me finally realizing that I am one-hundred percent, without a doubt, strictly dickly”

Noctis laughed. He had never heard that term before. Not like he would ever use it, right?

“The day after Cindy broke up with me, I was out exploring the Leiden landscape, which as you probably know, is just desert, tumbleweeds, and the occasional Sabertusk pack. Anyway, I found this cool plateau that the locals called a ‘Havens’, which I think is a way cooler name that it deserves.”

Noctis recalled Havens being scattered all around Lucis as reminders of Cosmogony. Specifically of the tales of daemons born from the Starscourge that only appear under the shadow of the moon. The havens, according to Cosmogony, were, with the Oracle’s divine blessing, supposed to be able to fend off daemon assaults and provide safety for those unlucky to be out when twilight had passed, and the night sky opened the gates to people’s personal hell. 

“So I laid down on the ‘haven’ and just thought about the fact that Cindy has broken up with me, even though I had wanted it, and that I was totally and completely gay. I guess I had dozed off at one point when I heard someone walking towards.”

“And it was Chrom?”

“Yeah… He said, and I quote ‘There are better places to take a nap than on the ground, you know.” Prompto sighed dreamily again. “Of course I laughed at that because that’s such a weird thing to say. Gosh, I can still remember him holding his hand out to me, pulling me up towards him. The sun was on his face and highlighting his perfect skin and amazing eyes, but you could tell he worked a lot from his tough, but reassuring hands. And His beautiful-“

“Is there an end to this very interesting story, which is just you gushing over this weirdly named guy?” Noctis asked. He didn’t like where it was going and wanted nothing more than an eject button from the entire conversation. He wanted to know more about Prompto, things that he could take with him when he left Altissia the next day. But this wasn’t what he expected not wanted. 

“Impatience isn’t a good look on you, Your Highness,” Prompto teased. However, Noctis was so wrapped up in uncertain terror that he didn’t give Prompto the reaction he knew he was supposed to. “He asked me if I wanted to pitch a tent there at the haven and spend the night just in nature because he needed to get away from it all just for the night. And he wouldn’t mind a little company. Obviously, I couldn't say no to that; he was so gorgeous! Like I hated him so much for being so attractive. It made me so happy and then sad all the time because there’s nothing I hate more than what I can’t have. The way he talked and the way his magnetic field just-“

“Are you going to get the actual part of the story or should I just go to sleep?”

“Fine, fine. We pitched the tent and just talked and talked for hours. We talked from when the sun was up to well after the sun went down and we had to start a campfire. We talked and talked about all kinds of stuff from our favorite stories growing up, the different constellations in the sky, just everything really. I told him about growing up with my adoptive parents, who are my real parents obviously but he understood what I meant by it.”

Noctis bit his lip from saying that he also understood what he meant by it. He didn’t want to want to compete with this guy he had never, and probably would never meet. 

“And I told him about my dreams of being a world-renowned photojournalist. He told me about how lost he was after his own parents died. About how his older sister, who he loved more than anyone except maybe his younger sister, was now in charge of their family’s company and he came out to Leide to ‘find himself.’”

“What does this guy’s life have to do with you and your coming out story?” Noctis asked, trying his best to hide his agitation. 

“I’m getting there! Good things come to those who w- stop throwing pillows! I’m trying to be serious!” Prompto quipped before chucking a pillow right at Noctis. “But not too serious, because I’m me.”

Prompto cleared his throat and began again. “It was so weird hearing someone older than me talk about not knowing what to do with their life and being so completely lost. Even though we weren’t lost in the same way, it was also kinda reassuring to hear that even people that I idolized didn’t have things all put together. Especially because of my massive crush on him.”

Noctis stifled the biggest grimace from that one word. It crushed him to think about it. 

“He told me that coming all the way to Hammerhead took a lot of courage because he had never left his friends and family for so long before. Then he asked me if I ever needed to be courageous. Because his father had told him that ‘sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage.’ And, I have no idea WHY I said this, I guess those twenty seconds had already come to collect, but-“ Prompto yawned and stretched out his arms. 

“Don’t yawn! I need to know what you said!” Noctis replied more forcefully than he had wanted and hoped Prompto didn’t think anything of it. 

“Now look who’s interested in my story. Told you it was interesting! But anyway, I told him that I had a huge crush on him.”

“YOU WHAT?!” Noctis would have spit out his drink if he had been drinking anything. 

“Yup, I told him that the entire summer while I was dating Cindy, I wished I was dating him instead. And when he didn’t say anything, I just kept going on and on about how no one really knew I was gay - besides my ex-best friend who surprisingly didn’t tell anyone about my feelings for him but probably more out of embarrassment than anything - and that he couldn’t tell anyone and I would leave if he was uncomfortable and to just forget about the whole thing. And I just kept talking and talking, hoping that I would tire him out or annoy him so badly that he would leave or forget about the whole thing. But then he kissed me.”

“He… kissed you?” Noctis called upon the strength of his forefathers and mothers to keep his emotions in check. Weskham wouldn’t appreciate magic being thrown all around his only guest room. 

“He kissed me right then in the middle of my nervous rant. He held my face like this,” Prompto leaned over to Noctis and put his right hand on Noctis’s cheek, sending thousands of lightning bolts throughout his body. “Leaned in close,” Prompto leaned even closer, their faces getting the treacherously close to each other. Barry a breath apart. “And he kissed me.” 

Prompto leaned back and laid back on the floor, leaving Noctis bereft and wanting more of something. What that “something” was, he didn’t know or didn’t want to admit that he knew. He would have easily given himself into what could have been a kiss. But Prompto leaned back; therefore, Prompto couldn’t have wanted to kiss him. It just didn’t make any sense. 

“And obviously, I kissed him back.”

“And that’s it, right?” Noctis asked, hoping his voice wasn’t too shaky. He needed to get control of himself that instant

“Well- PG-13, yes but…”

“Oh my- wow.” Noctis gulped, silently. 

“Yup, he was the first boy I ever kissed. And he was also the first for ‘that’ too, with anybody. He was so kind and gentle and he kept asking if I felt okay, which I didn’t really, but I liked it so much and I liked it with him- and this is weirding you out. Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He lied. Noctis hit himself on the head, inside, for saying that. He wanted Prompto to not talk about his first time kissing a boy and doing that stuff with a boy. And not because he was a boy but because- he refused to acknowledge the end of that statement. “I’m glad you can talk to me about this kind of stuff with me .” That was the truth. Best friends were supposed to be able to talk about almost anything with each other. And they weren’t supposed to let extremely confusing and conflicting feelings get in the way of that. 

“And you promise me talking about this stuff doesn’t make you nervous or too uncomfortable?” Prompto asked, looking a lot more sincere than he had in a long time. At least since Noctis met him, those many months before. “Because I know how you straight guys can get. Like I get it but also, I’ve never really had anyone to talk about this about.”

“Don’t worry, I’m good.” He was not, but he knew that saying that wouldn’t have been the best course of action. He also just really wanted to hear the end of the story. And he hoped that this Chrom nonsense was coming to its, hopefully final, end. And he wasn’t even sure if “straight” fit him as a label anymore but he decided to file that away for later, which really meant never. 

“Okay cool, that’s a relief.” Prompto breathed out. “Anyway, Yeah. We spent the night together in that tent, wrapped up in each other.” Prompto smiled, thinking back. “And then morning came and summer was ending.”

“I guess you really have a thing for summers,” Noctis said, believing that if he brought up innocuous topics, he would feel more at peace. 

“Yeah, I guess so! Like summer IS the best season. I can’t IMAGINE being stuck in snow for an extended period of time. Or stranded in the snow, with only a motorcycle, a gun, and the clothes on my back. But catch me stranded on a summery island any day. But back to me.” 

Noctis rolled his eyes. 

“He went back home to Niflheim the next day and I never saw him again…”

“Wait, really?” Noctis almost fell off his bed in astonishment. How could this person just up and leave the next day? If Noctis were him…

“Yes, really. Isn’t that sad? The prince, because being heir adjacent to a Fortune 500 company is almost like being a prince -let’s be real here - left the day after deflowering the commoner - aka me. Not romantic at all!” Prompto laughed a little.

“Wait, why are you laughing that’s actually really sad?” Even though Noctis might not have been one hundred percent alright with this part of the story, he still didn’t like imagining Prompto being left the day after he lost his virginity. Given that virginity was a somewhat precious topic to himself. 

“Yeah, I guess it is sad,” Prompto continued, a demure smile on his face. “But really, I saw it as an Awakening of sorts. Chrom was nice and gentle and caring and hot and he was there for me when I needed him most. We both knew that summer was ending and I was going to go back to Altissia soon and he was going back to Niflheim even sooner. We talked the morning after about the fact that we were leaving and he even apologized about the fact that he was leaving so soon after we did the deed, especially because it was my first time which he was surprisingly so receptive of. We kept in touch afterward though for a little while; sometimes I would call him, sometimes he would call me. But then he kinda went radio silent.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t sure for a while and was a little hurt by it but then one day my dad mentioned to me that he had taken control of his family’s business.”

“Wait, but I thought you said that his older sister was in charge of it?”

“That’s the sad part,” Prompto said, pulling on his hair a little. “His older sister was killed in a freak accident.” Noctis gasped. “Do it made sense that he went kinda dead on me for a while.”

“That… is not what I expected.” 

“Neither did I but if anyone had to go through sometimes as triply tragic as losing both parents, an older sister, and becoming the acting chair of such a huge company in such a short amount of time. 

“I can imagine,” Noctis said, quiet enough for Prompto not to hear. He had already lost his mother, and his father wasn’t getting any younger, and a whole kingdom, the most influential one in all of Eos, loomed on the unfortunately realistic horizon. He didn’t want to think of those unstoppable truths so he turned all of his attention back to Prompto who, apparently, begun talking again. 

“-and in the end, Chrom just solidified the fact that I am, like I’ve said before, one hundred percent and unmistakably gay or my patent-pending, strictly dickly.”

“Well… I guess that’s one way to find out…” Noctis mumbled. Maybe he would have to try that. But probably not with Prompto for way more reasons than he could count his fingers, knees, and toes. 

“Yup,” Prompto laughed. “And let me tell you - it was hot. Like, oh boy, it felt like I was on-”

“Okay, let’s move on from that and wrap up this exciting story of ‘Who’s Who’ in Prompto’s love life.”

“Fine fine,” Prompto laughed it off. “After my dad and I got back to Altissia, I did the first thing I had spent so many nights tossing and turning in my bed over and over. Crying in my closet when I wasn’t ready to do it and scared for everything to change.” Prompto took a deep breath. “I came out to my parents, who were surprised because I had dated Cindy. Of course, I didn’t tell them about Chrom because that’s a bit too much information that I would never tell my parents, like ever. But really, they were really supportive. Like REALLY supportive. 

My mom, you met her you so you kind of know, advocated so much for me and like told me about when all the Pride Parades all the way in Cartanica were and about her friends’ gay sons but it’s like, come on, Mom, not all gay guys are going to be into each other. Are all straight people into each other?”

“And your dad?” He was silently, and sinfully, hoping that Prompto’s dad wasn’t as supportive because he knew that his own father wouldn’t be. How could he be?

“Oh, he was alright. He didn’t talk to me about it all that much, because he just saw me as Prompto, the son that loved to exercise and fix cars with him. who just happened to want to hold boys’ hands while walking down the street. And my siblings didn’t care all that much either. Why would they?”

“Because you were still Prompto, their brother.” Noctis half asked, half answered. He was happy for Prompto and how supported he was and quietly, secretly sad for himself because he knew that if he ever had the same thoughts and feelings, his dad would be far from it.

“Exactly, you get it.”  
Not really, Noctis thought. 

“But yeah that’s it. That’s my whole gay life story. From getting fake married to my childhood girl crush, to doing it in a tent in Leide with a really hot guy.”

“Umm… Thanks for sharing that with me, Blondie.” Noctis said after a comfortable silence had fallen over them in that moonlit room. “I bet it wasn’t the easiest thing to talk about. Except, maybe the last part because you seem very proud of that.”

“Hey, I’m going to find a picture of him right now and you’ll see what a fine specimen of the human male race he is. Gimme a sec-” Prompto went to reach for his phone.

“I’ll talk your word for it, Prom,” Noctis replied, fake laughing it off. He really did not want to see the person who, as Prompto had so eloquently stated, ‘deflowered’ him. 

“You straight guys,” Prompto shook his head. “But yeah, my story isn’t the easiest to talk about but, looking back at it now, it’s also not the most difficult to talk about either. You know,” Prompto laid back down on the makeshift bed that Noctis had made for him. “That was the first time I had ever spoken the whole story out loud all at once to anyone. You must be pretty special.”

“Aw gee, thanks.” Noctis felt something in his stomach then, warming him and rising up towards his chest. 

“I’m glad I shared that with you.” Prompto put his hand up again and traced the ceiling fan that he had forgotten about throughout his whole monologue. “I don’t feel weird anymore.”  
“Well, you are weird but not for being gay.”

“Aw gee, thanks,” Prompto replied sarcastically. “But in all seriousness, I hope you can tell me anything. Ever.”

“That sounds good,” Noctis replied although he knew that wasn’t entirely true for him.

Prompto closed his eyes. “And thanks for not being nervous around me like my ex-best friend was when I came out to him and confessed my feelings for him.” He smiled. “I really hope I don’t make you nervous.”

Noctis didn’t reply and he wasn’t sure why.

* * *

 

“I remember,” Noctis replied, keeping a safe distance from Prompto. He remembered it all, to the way that Prompto’s arms traced the fan and how his breathing changed throughout his monologue. Especially when he was talking about Chrom, but he pushed that back down as soon as it came up.

“Please don’t be nervous around me,” Prompto said, searching desperately in Noctis’ eyes for some semblance of the guy from that night not more than a month prior. “I already lost one best friend because of gay stuff. I don’t want to lose another one.”

Noctis sighed, looking down at his hands that he hadn’t realized were beginning to sweat profusely. He rubbed them on his pants, hoping Prompto wouldn’t notice, knowing full well that he probably did. How could someone not notice something like that? “I’m sorry, Prompto. But-”

“But what?” Prompto asked, his voice breaking, tears clearly beginning to form in the back of his eyes. “We were best friends this summer and had the best time. I told you so much about my life and I thought you had told me a lot about yours but maybe you weren’t as open with me as I thought. Did I have our friendship wrong? Please just tell me so I don’t have to walk around this campus for a whole four years wanting to be with the best friend I had this summer.” Prompto’s hands were shaking and soon his whole body would be as well.

“Prompto, stop,” Noctis said, reaching out and grabbing ahold of Prompto’s wrist. He felt warm but not as warm as he did in Altissia whenever their hands had touched, like when Prompto had helped him onto the boat or when they were thrown in an impromptu salsa dancing performance in the park, much to the audience's delight. Things were so different back there, an ocean away. “You have to stop.”

Prompto took a couple of uneven breaths and began to dry heave a little. 

“I’m here,” Noctis said, guiding Prompto to the nearest bench, his hand around the small of his back. “I got you.”

“Sorry, Noct,” Prompto said once he had caught his breath again. His hands were still shaking so he put them into his hoodie pocket. “I don’t know what just came over me.”  
“I do,” Noctis said, turning to face the sidewalk, not speaking to anything or anyone in particular. “I kissed you and ran away. And I’m sorry about that.” He took a deep breath and secretly thanked the Astrals for keeping that part of campus deserted so no one could see him like this. With silent tears welling up in the back of his eyes, trying his best to hide it from his best friend who he couldn’t have feelings for and wouldn’t allow himself to have feelings for “I kinda ruined everything, you know?”

“I wouldn’t say you ruined _everything_ ,” Prompto said, at last, his breath normal and his heartbeat at a regular pace. “But yeah, you did kinda ruin the Festival. When you mess something up, you really don’t half-ass it, do you?” Prompto laughed, slapping Noctis’ back.

“Heyyyy,” Noctis huffed. “You’re the one who was hyperventilating so hard I had to lead you to a bench so you wouldn’t like combust or something.”

“Yeah, we’re both messes aren’t we?” They both laughed, their laughs synchronizing like they had become so accustomed to those three hot months. “I’m glad we’re laughing again.”

“Yeah me too, Blondie.”

“So, friends?” Prompto asked. “I’m willing to throw everything that happened that night under the bridge, have Leviathan herself drown it, and forget about it.”

“That was very on-brand for you,” Noctis chuckled, standing up from the bench. “But, yeah I’m willing to forget it too” Although he wasn’t so sure about it really. Especially seeing Prompto right in front of him, close enough to touch, which of course he had already done, and close enough to ki-

“Awesome,” Prompto sighed out. “It’s been so long!” He jumped up and wrapped Noctis in a huge hug, his arms taking Noctis in. “I missed you.”

If Noctis were a weaker man, he would kiss Prompto right then and swept him into a whirlwind that he had never done with Luna before. He would take Prompto’s face in his hands and stare into his eyes and get lost in his ocean gray waves. He would do anything besides just hug him back, willing “himself” to not get too excited. 

Prompto let Noctis go, his eyes slightly red from the tears that had made it onto Noctis’s shoulder. “Sorry, Noct. I’m just super emotional.” He took a deep breath and wiped Noctis’s shoulder. “I miss my family I guess.”

“Yeah?” Noctis asked, grabbing Prompto’s backpack for him “When’s the last time you talked to them?”

“Last night…” Prompto sheepishly replied, putting his backpack on. Noctis hadn’t noticed all the keychains on his backpack. A golden Chocobo. A cute winged Moogle. A green Tonberry. And those were just to name a few. “It’s weird not seeing them every day. I don’t know; I’ll be okay.”

“Well, if you ever need anything, I’ve got you,” Noctis said, throwing his arm around Prompto’s shoulders. He was stepping way out of his comfort zone but it felt like the right then to do. “But you still need to get to your class, right?”

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot about that.”

“What are you going to do without me? Noctis laughed. Prompto slapped his shoulder. “What class is it anyway?”

“Photography 101 with Dr. Vyv Dorden. I’m hoping to work with him on his newest project that everyone on the forums has been talking about and maybe get an internship at Meteor Publishing. It would be amazing.”

“Oh yeah, Vyv. He’s a character for sure.”

“You know Vyv?!” Prompto exclaimed, jumping up and down in excitement. “He’s only one of my heroes!”

“Well, I am a Prince…”

Prompto then proceeded to badger Noctis about everything he knew about Dr. Vyv Dorden from how they met to how he liked his Garula steak cooked. After what seemed like an eternity pleading and Noctis trying in vain to ignore him, Prompto was able to persuade Noctis to maybe introduce them sometime in the future. Not on the first day though. That would be too much. And Prompto had class. And dignity. And didn’t want to pee his pants in front of his photography idol. 

Noctis led Prompto towards Shiva Hall in North Campus, the arts and humanities part of campus that he was well acquainted with because of Luna’s line of study. He would visit her during her long nights of research and TA’ing with AstralBucks in one hand and warm almond croissants on the other. They would laugh at the expense of some of her student’s blunders and reminisce about the old days in Tenebrae. When had they grown apart? 

Well, him kissing Prompto might have had something to do with it…

They passed under the arch that denoted the north side of campus, the Arch of Ice. It wasn’t actually made of ice but had many different glacial motifs. The arch itself was made of gray concrete that had still not shown any signs of cracking or breaking after almost a hundred years since its construction. Different iterations of Shiva were carved into the arch, from the large divine body found in ancient texts that was thought to have brought upon the first winter in Eos history to the small pixie Shiva’s that had popped up in more recent history, that were thought to appear to wayward travelers lost in the snow to lead them to salvation. Metal icicles adorned the underside of the arch, with ribbons of metal and sheen glass wrapping around them creating an image of a blizzard amidst mountain peaks, albeit upside down. On the top of the arch was a beautifully rendered sculpture of Shiva conjuring a Diamond Dust, with snowflakes and ice rising up from around her and emanating from her hands. No wonder this was the first thing anyone saw when walking into the Arts and Humanities side of campus.

“And here’s Shiva Hall,” Noctis said, holding his hand out to gesture at the tall building. Glass windows lined the entire six-story building, allowing natural light into art studios that had easels and canvases of all kinds. Some windows were blacked out which Prompto quickly explained helped photography in some kind of way that went right over Noctis’s head. “I better get going to my own class now.”

“Thanks, Noctis,” Prompto said, still awestruck by the building. “I’m so glad I got in here. This is going to be the best four years of my life.” 

“I hope so,” Noctis said, looking off into the sky. “Well, I’m going to head out. I’m glad we’re friends again.”

“Me too,” Prompto turned back around. “And I know we drowned it and everything,” Prompto looked right into Noctis’s eyes. “But for what it’s worth, I would have kissed you back.”


	7. How The Food was Good, but Everything Else Was Not

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so sorry everyone! I just got my computer back after it being in the shop for a couple of weeks and was FINALLY able to get back to editing and writing!!! I didn't realize how much I missed being able to write on an actual laptop rather than on my phone on break at work! I really hope you enjoy this chapter, even though it's a little bit of a departure from my previous chapters. Thanks for staying with me through my many unplanned and unnecessarily long breaks between chapters, ugg!!!!

 First Course: Quillhorn Soup

 

“So, glass breaking notwithstanding I assume that you did not have any problems on your way up here?” King Regis asked after Noctis and Luna had received their first course, a warm Quillhorn soup. 

When Noctis had finally made it to the dining hall, he had turned around too quickly to the unmistakable sound of his father’s footsteps and knocked over a drinking glass. King Regis, stoic as ever, had one of the maids, Flora, clean up the clean the broken glass from the floor, much to Noctis’s chagrin. He had always hated other people cleaning up his messes, literal or not. Something his mother had left within him. 

“I half expected you to get lost, given that you haven’t been home in what, three months?” King Regis stroked his graying beard. “No, it must have been longer than that, what six, twelve?”

“I don’t remember,” Noctis mumbled into his soup. Not even one course in and his dad was already giving him the third degree. He was lucky that his father hadn’t attacked him for how he was dressed or how his hair wasn’t perfectly combed or how he was slouching at the dinner table... yet. He took a big slurp and some of the orange liquid made the long jump from his spoon onto the white tablecloth. 

“Noctis, why can’t you be more careful?” King Regis chided him. “Flo-”

“Don’t call her,” Noctis replied, taking his napkin from his lap to dab the cloth. “My mess, I’ll clean it.”

“Noctis, we don’t have maids and butlers not to have them clean up our messes.”

“Well, maybe I don’t feel comfortable having other people clean up all of my messes all the time.”

“There isn’t enough help in the world to do that.” His father took a spoonful of his soup. Noctis scowled at him, refusing to dignify that with a response. A trait he had mastered growing up in this hostile citadel of nonstop judgment. Something his father had left within him.

“This soup is delicious,” Luna tried to break the ice, as she was so accustomed to doing. “I would love this recipe.”

“Oh, I can have Jared send the recipe to Maria so she can make it for you sometime,” King Regis replied, taking a sip of his red wine. Noctis could see why Prompto hated red wine so much; not so much for the taste but the fact his father seemed to love it a little more than he loved anything else. Sometimes, Noctis dared to think he loved it more than _anyone_ else.

“Maybe Luna wanted to make it for herself and not have Maria slave away at a burning stove to make it.”

“I believe Luna can speak for herself, Noctis. And like I said, maids and butlers serve us for a reason.”

“Well, those reasons aren’t all that great. I believe that sometimes we like to do things for ourselves. I know I do.” Noctis mumbled again into his soup, making sure not to spill any on the tablecloth again. That would be embarrassing. And warrant even more hostility. 

“Well, look how far that has gotten you.” 

“And what is that supposed to mean?” Noctis asked, putting his spoon down and staring right into his father’s eyes. They never did bring him joy like his mother’s had. At least not anymore.

“It means that you have always-“

“Oh, look here comes Jared,” Luna stated, trying her best to remain neutral. “Those look delicious.”

 

Second Course: Crab Miso Xiaolongbao 

 

“All I’m saying Noctis,” King Regis said while gingerly placing a dumpling onto his plate. “All throughout school, you never applied yourself like you should have. You could have made more of yourself in high school instead of just riding on the fact that you’re the Crown Prince, which you also seem so eager to discard like a plastic bag floating in the wind.”

Noctis rolled his eyes at his father’s thinly veiled attempt to try to get him to change, as he had done over and over again for not being the golden child. “And how _should_ I have ‘applied myself?’”

“Extracurricular activities, clubs, school elections,” King Regis continued, leaving his dumpling uneaten. “Anything besides coming home every day and playing video games or going to that god awful arcade and playing video games or-”

“Okay, we get it.” Noctis tersely replied, stuffing the whole dumpling in his mouth. “I’m not the perfect prince I was supposed to be.” He said, food still in his mouth.

“How many times have I told you not to talk with your mouth full?” King Regis huffed, “You would think I was talking to a six-year-old instead of a twenty-year-old.”

“Maybe you would actually try to have a pleasant conversation with a six-year-old and not attack him at every chance you could humanly get.” Noctis had finished chewing by then and was ready to fight back with all the power in his body.

“Maybe a six-year-old wouldn’t talk back to his father, who happens to still be his king, and would actually listen and do what he is told.”

“Well maybe-”

“So Noctis, how were the rest of your classes?” Luna interrupted, her eyes pleading to him to quickly change the subject and lighten the mood. In his plight to stand up to his father in any way he could, he somehow forgot she was there. He was being a horrible fellow guest and pseudo-host and boyfriend. The last part should have stood out more to him but in spite of everything, like his father and the conversation he had with Prompto only a few hours before, it kept slipping his mind. Was that a sign? 

“Yes. Noctis how _were_ your classes? I hope you actually made it on time to the ones after Cosmogony 101,” King Regis raised his eyebrow, questioningly.

“How did yo-” Noctis stopped himself. Of course, his father would have found out. If not from Gentiana who, from what he gathered, would be too busy and would care too little to out him for his tardiness, it would have been circling the campus like Starscourge the second he burst through those doors. And once more than ten percent of the student body had been talking about something dealing with him, it would make its way up the citadel to the throne on the forty-fifth floor faster than you could say:

“I just thought you would have more accountability and discipline given that you’ve been living on your own for over two years now. Clearly, you’ve proved me wrong. Again.” King Regis ate his second dumpling, the last one. “But what should I expect?”

“Gods, I was late to my first class on the first day of my first semester.” Noctis huffed. He turned to Luna who gave him one of her trademark sympathetic looks. 

She had always been in King Regis’s good graces so she never felt first-hand contempt from him but, given that he never held back around her, also knew clearly how second-hand contempt and disapproval felt. She could only try to divert the conversation the best she could, which by the end of the second course, had been in vain. Both she and Noctis knew that she could and should never try to stand up for him directly or perhaps face the wrath of an angered and humiliated king. One of them had to be on his good side, or all hell would break loose. 

“I’m just trying to reiterate the fact that everything you do reflects on yourself and the entire royal family.” King Regis took another sip of his wine. Noctis made a note to himself to try to actively stop drinking red wine; nothing would be worse than turning into his father. “You have to hold yourself at a higher standard and be more accountable than everyone else. It does not matter if one of your classmates is late to their first class of their first day of their first semester, as you so eloquently stated, because they do not have an entire kingdom they will someday rule.”

“I know, father,” Noctis said, mustering all of his Astral-given strength to keep from rolling his eyes again. And like he had done for years and years, he turned his head slightly, said “bite me” to himself, and said what he knew his father would want to hear: “It won’t happen again.”

“Good.”

 

Third Course: Keycatrich Salad

 

“Before I forget,” Noctis said, after taking a quick bite of his salad. He hated vegetables but, for some reason, could bare this one salad. But only if it was made the correct way by the correct chef in the citadel. He thanked the Astrals that his father hadn’t made a snarky remark about him actually eating vegetables. But immediately after, he cursed himself for jinxing it. The salad course was not over just yet. And knowing his father, he had to be ready to counter and parry every comment thrown at him. “Dean Gentiana wanted me to give you this.”

Noctis slid the manila folder over to King Regis with ease. None of the papers even fell out, which was a win in and of itself.

“Noctis you could have knocked down a glass,” King Regis stated, picking up the folder. And there was the loss. “Oh wait, you already did.” His face was stone-cold and Noctis felt his glare go right through him. Only three more courses. He could make it through the rest of dinner. He hoped. He had to. 

But, just maybe he didn’t have to. He had just given him the only real reason he was even at the dinner. Maybe he would cause a scene. That seemed like the perfect escape plan.

“You know wh-”

“Dean Gentiana said it had something to do with Niflheim relations,” Luna interrupted again before shooting Noctis a subtle glare. Noctis knew that look: the “What are you doing?” look Luna had given him many times in situations just like this.

“The war,” King Regis mumbled to himself, before opening the folder. “I just can’t believe we’re going through this all over again.”

“Are you really going to bring work to the dinner table?” Noctis gruffed. “I only have that to you so I wouldn’t forget to do it later. You know mom hated when you talked politics at the dinner table.” He took a big piece of spinach and stuffed it into his mouth. “I know I do”

“Well, times are changing, Noctis.” King Regis replied, skimming the documents. “You’ll have to deal with this sometime soon when I’m gone.” He looked up from the papers and Noctis could swear he saw something like a glimmer of sadness his father’s eyes. 

“What do you mean ‘sometime soon’?”

“Well both of you know,” He looked at Luna, then Noctis, keeping his eyes on him. “With each use of magic, however small or large, a piece of our life force is taken away and returned to the Astrals that gave them to our ancestors long ago.” King Regis coughed slightly into his napkin. 

“Of course, King Regis,” Luna replied. “I am sure Noctis and I have been very careful and sparing with our magic use.”

“That is reassuring to hear, Luna,” King Regis replied regaining an even breath soon after his sudden cough, giving her a slight smile. “Remember you can call me Regis. You are essentially family.” He turned his head to face Noctis. “I hope you have been just as sparing with your magic, Noctis.”

“I have been,” Noctis grumbled. He froze an entire patch of sand and shot giant fireballs at humongous wasps so that was clearly a lie. But it was also very much for self-defense so his father couldn’t be that mad about it. But also, he totally and probably would be. “You’ve always been good at scaring me away from using it.”

King Regis sighed. “I don’t mean to scare you. I’m just…” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath followed by two rapid coughs. “Have I ever told you both about what happened in Keycatrich?”

“The ruins in Northern Leide?” Luna asked, after placing his fork down next to her salad. She never had the biggest appetite but when it came to salad, no one could stop this Tenebraen. “I have read much about it in my studies and own interest. Mostly about how it was Niflheim’s last stand against the Lucian army.”

“Yes, it was.” King Regis replied after taking a swig of the glass of water Jared, the family butler, had brought to him. 

Jared had always been much more attuned to King Regis’s and Noctis’s needs than either of them. When Noctis was younger, he had wished Jared was his grandfather rather than the grandfather he barely knew in his early childhood days. He could just imagine all the sweet bread and stories Jared would have spoiled him with after his shift was over and he could return home to his own family. Oh, what a life that would have been!

“But what is not in most textbooks is how we were actually able to push back against the Niflheim army and drive them out once and for all. And at what cost.” King Regis spun the ring around his father, calculating it with his eyes. “I was there and-”

“What?!” Noctis exclaimed. “You were at the Battle of Keycatrich?! The one where the whole city turned into the heap of rocks and caves it is now?”

“Yes, I was.” King Regis looked out the window, mournfully. “It was also where I, ironically, met your mother.”

“You met Mom in Keycatrich? I thought you met her at the Waltz to the Moon Ball here at the Citadel?”

Noctis, even being so young, always remembered the stories that his mother told him about how she and his father met. She had come to the annual Waltz to the Moon Ball searching for someone else, a former crush, but when she couldn’t find him, she just went around looking for the most eligible bachelor to dance with. She wasn’t looking for love, as she had always said which always almost prompted a young Noctis to grimace, but when she laid her eyes on his father, she knew he was the one. She swore up and down it wasn’t because he was the prince, so close to being coronated, but because of the way his stoic face seemed ready to crack. Like he was waiting for something to chip away at his rough, rocky exterior to the crystal gems inside. Her words, not Noctis’s. 

“I may have misspoken,” King Regis continues. “It is true I did not formally meet your mother until the ball, and she asked me to dance even though I repeatedly told her I could not dance. But she did not care for my, as she said, ‘lame excuses’, took my hand, and dragged me across the ballroom floor.” King Regis closed his eyes and smiled. “Oh, how young we were. I stepped on her feet so many times and swung into so many people. 

“But when I let go of her hand to leave the dance floor and save myself from further humiliation, she followed me just as quickly and pulled me right back. She took both of my hands and she wouldn’t let go until I finally was not tripping over my feet, her feet, and everyone else’s feet. And, as they say, the rest is history.” King Regis looked out the window with a sad smile on his face. “Oh, Aulea.”

“That story is always so romantic,” Luna said, stealing a quick glance at Noctis who was deep in recalling how his mother would tell the same story whenever he wanted to hear it. 

“Yes, I suppose it is. But, back to the matter at hand.” King Regis continued, shaking off that momentary lapse into happier times. “I actually first laid eyes on Queen Aulea when a small battalion of Kingsglaive and I were responding to a distress signal from Keycatrich. I was not supposed to accompany them given how close to my coronation it was but I needed to help in the war effort, especially given how close we were to the end of The Great War. Lucian forces had driven the Niflheim forces out of every single fortress they had tried building throughout Cleigne, Duscae, and Leide; Keycatrich was their last-ditch effort and I had to be a part of it. If not for my country, for myself.”

“How rebellious,” Luna added. She gave Noctis’s ankle a slight nudge and shot him an invisible conspiratory look. In the most recent past, King Regis hadn’t shown any sign of breaking any rules, which Luna and Noctis had been discussing before dinner had begun. So to hear that he went against protocol to lead a whole battalion into what would be the decisive battle of the Great War was both revolutionary and scandalous. 

“Yes, I was quite rebellious back then. But I was willing to sacrifice my life for my kingdom It was an incredibly reckless and dangerous thing to do but it was a very different time back then. Even though we had pushed Niflheim out of most of Lucis, everyone knew if they took Keycatrich, the war would be extended for many more years.” He coughed quietly. “It was the only choice that I could envision for myself.”

“So then what happened?!” Noctis asked, excited to hear how his father did what was probably the coolest thing he had ever done in his life.

King Regis gave Noctis a wistful smile. “I wish you would get more excited about calmer things like international relations and your impending coronation, but I’ll take what I can get for now.”

Noctis let the thinly veiled passive aggression go in one ear and out the other in anticipation for this story. 

“The Kingsglaive and I had just finished evacuating everyone from the city when we heard an unmistakable mechanical screeching from the city gates. We all did our best to warp there as fast as we could and got there just in time to see at least fifty Niflheim soldiers descending from their dropships, with guns and swords and dead eyes. They truly were empty vessels designed for one purpose only: to kill. I was preparing to take them down with all the magic at my disposal, life-draining consequences be damned. But then I heard her.”

 “Who? Mom?!” Noctis squeaked at the edge of his seat. Suddenly, he was six years old listening to his father and mother’s stories of Cosmogony and tales of chivalry. But there was also an undeniable air of terror in this one.

“Yes, it was your mother.” King Regis breathed out solemnly. “I still remember that scream even now.” He turned towards Noctis, his eyes warming up with a certain kind of comfort and a tinge of sadness. “I’m so sorry that you ever had to hear that. But, we are not going to talk about that just now. Either way, all of us ran toward the screams and found your mother, so young and afraid, staring up at the most terrifying thing - no, monstrosity - I’ve ever seen.” 

“What did you see?!” Noctis asked, on the literal of his seat, his leg shaking up and down, left to right. Whenever, he did it while in Altissia, Prompto, like on cue, placed his hand on his knee and counted to three to calm Noctis down. No one had ever done that for him; not even Luna. How he wanted Prompto there right now.

“There, standing where all could see was a giant Magitek Armor, an enormous machine with two clawed arms, numerous cannons, and, dare I say, daemonic red laser eyes. I had only heard rumors of Niflheim making something so massive and destructive but there it was, in the garish light of day, ready to destroy everything. And that everything included your mother, with her leg trapped under a pile of rubble.”

Noctis’s leg was out of control then, threatening to start a minor earthquake that could take down the entire table and all three of them. Sure, he knew how this story was going to end, at least with his mother and father’s ending but hearing all of this was proving to be too much. Almost.

“That’s when I felt it,” King Regis continued, his eyes stern but extremely feeling. He moved his ring on his finger and closed his eyes.

“Armiger?” Noctis imagined his father summoning the fifteen weapons of Yore, flying around the unwitting battlefield, taking down the MA and protecting his future mother. If he wasn’t so terrified by the prospect of his mother being in any way injured by stray bullets, lasers, or Astrals-forbid, a stray slash from his father’s weapons, he would have been jumping in sheer pride by his childhood superhero dream. He had spent so many nights dreaming and wishing he could conjure Armiger at least once, knowing full well the toll that kind of magic would take on him. If his father had been so adamant on a single fire spell, Armiger would have been unthinkable. But now, he didn’t need his father’s disapproval to scare him away from that magic. He now saw Armiger in the worst light ever: his mother’s desperate screams that could even evoke a response from the Stoic King himself.

“No, it was not.” King Regis replied, taking his ring off and giving it to Noctis. “I used this.”

“I knew I recognized that ring,” Luna said, eyeing the ring with her discerning, Ph.D. student eyes. “That is the Ring of the Lucii, is it not? I believe I read some historical documents about that ring and its- oh, Astrals, King Regis tell me you did not-”

“Yes, Luna, I did.”

“Did what?!” Noctis asked, incredulously.

“Noctis, that, as Luna stated, is the Ring of the Lucii. It was bestowed upon our bloodline by the Astrals at the same time they gave us our magic. And it has been passed down from generation to generation.”

“And if I am not mistaken,” Luna added, holding the ring delicately in her fingers, being extremely careful not to touch it or, what it seemed like, to even think about putting it on. “It serves as proof of the rightful successor of the throne. As, if the annals I am recalling serve me correctly, if someone unworthy of the throne, essentially not of the Lucian bloodline, were to even put this ring on, they would be judged and delivered by the Rulers of Yore in the most horrendous ways imaginable.”

“You would, unfortunately, be correct, Luna,” King Regis replied after Luna gingerly handed the ring back to him. “Noctis, this ring holds all of the power of our ancestors and if wielded by us, it can produce the most powerful and destructive magic known to all of Eos. As you might have already gathered, as I can tell by your face-” Noctis was making his concerned but also questioning expression that he had always unconsciously made whenever he was, well, concerned or confused. “I never told you about it before, because- well, because I never wanted to burden you with its power and its dangers.”

“Clearly,” Noctis answered “So if this ring can destroy anyone who wears it who is not the two of us, then how and why did you use it? I just can’t believe that what you say is the most dangerous object in all of Eos has been around your finger all this time. I just don’t understand. And I just want to know what you did to save Mom. Even though I could not.”

“Noctis,” Luna said quietly, placing her hand on his shoulder. “You were so young. You know no one blames you for-”

“Dad, finish the story please,” Noctis kept going. He wasn’t going to let even that get in his way of hearing this story out. Even if his mother’s story had already had its definitive ending.

“Very well. This ring channels the power of Eos’s crystal, which you know is in this very citadel-” 

How could Noctis forget? The great Eos crystal that was left by the Astrals more than two millennia ago stood - floated? - halfway through the citadel, in the middle of its four towers and exuded its crystalline light all day and all night. Noctis was always secretly terrified that somehow it would shatter and the Starscourge from the terrible mythos would come to pass. 

“-and directly taps into the powers of Rulers of Yore. Not just their weapons as in conjuring Armiger. It is powerful, devastating- and drains much more than just your life. Like you began to allude to, Luna, I used it to send the three MA’s into Alterna. And before you ask Noctis, Alterna is a space not known to this world. Rather a gateway to the beyond, as they say,”

“You sent them… to hell?”

“Not hell,” Luna corrected him. “Another realm, one from which nothing can return. I read about it in my studies. It truly is a fate worse than death.”

 King Regis sighed a long sigh that took both Noctis and Luna by surprise. Never in his life had Noctis ever heard his dad sigh like that, like all was lost. Like nothing could be saved. “And I did not just send the MA there. I-” King Regis coughed violently into his fist, more so than he had done all night.

“What else… did you send?”

“I’ve grown a bit tired, Noctis. Talking about this is draining, as you can probably gather. We all know I don’t need any more gray hair.” His mouth laughed, but his eyes did not. “Just know that your mother was safe and we would meet again many months later, under that auspicious moon.”

“I guess we can talk about it some other time then, dad.”

King Regis touched the ring and sighed. “I wish I didn’t have to.”

 

Fourth Course: Fettini di Cernia

 

“When will you learn? When. Will. You. Learn?” He took a quick, shallow breath. “That YOUR ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES?!” King Regis’s voice boomed throughout the hall, the slam of his hands on the table creating vibrations that Noctis and Luna could feel across the table. Vibrations that could no doubt be felt at the far edges of Insomnia, suburbs and suburbs away. “After all the IDIOTIC, IRRESPONSIBLE, HALF-BRAINED things you have EVER done. I just can’t-”

“Father, calm-” Noctis tried to say.

“Do NOT tell me to calm down, Prince Noctis. You could have gotten yourself killed and then where would Insomnia, no, the entire Kingdom of Lucis be?!”

 

Flora had served the fourth course, Fettini di Cernia, an Altissian delicacy that Weskham had made for himself and Noctis often over the summer. The aroma hit Noctis before Flora had even put the plate in front of him, bringing him back to those calm, Altissian nights around a table, talking about nothing in particular with one of the only adults that ever paid him any semblance of respect. It brought him back to when Prompto took his first bite of Noctis’s favorite of Weksham’s dishes, his face lighting up like fireworks and filling Noctis with a sense of joy he hadn’t felt before.

“This is one of Weskham’s specialties,” His father said, putting one of the cutlets on his fork. “I assume he made this for you over the summer?”

“Yeah, he did,” Noctis replied, taking his first bite of the cutlet. He wasn’t sure what he expected the dish to taste like if not prepared by the genius himself but he wasn't disappointed. Sure it wasn’t exactly the same, and he wasn’t across the sea, an ocean away from the father who had, not just two courses ago, attacked him for being late to class. Maybe the rest of the dinner would go as amicably as the salad had, even if it had taken a somewhat somber turn near the end. 

“I recently spoke with Weskham,” his father continued. “And he said that you were a great guest.”

“Well, he was a great host.”

“And you made a really good friend over there.” His father eyed him inquisitively.

“Oh, yes, that Prompto boy from class, right?” Luna asked, dabbing the sides of her mouth that had small cutlet crumbs around the edges. “He seemed very nice. And smart of course.”

“Smart?” His father asked, his fork dancing around a particularly juicy piece of meat. “I cannot believe Noctis actually made a friend who might be intelligent.” His father laughed.

“Har har.” Noctis rebutted, smiling. “He said one smart thing in lecture today, that’s all.”

“So are you saying that he is not smart?” His father asked, making Luna laugh as well.

“Daaadddddd.”

“I’m merely joking, of course. Now, where did you meet this… Prompto was it?”

“He was the barista at the cafe I went to a lot this summer and he found me at a Totomostro match and we ended up hanging out afterward.”  
“How cute,” Luna added. “He seemed to know a lot about Cosmogony. Even Dean Gentiana was impressed, after Noctis’s blunder.”

“Ah, yes. I did hear something along those lines today.” His father added, cutting into his last piece of meat.

“Yeah, I was just caught off guard on top of the fact that Prompto knows like everything about Shiva and Ifrit.” Noctis picked up his second to the last piece of meat. “He even took me to Lover’s Rock, whose name is a little strange but makes sense because, you know, Ifrit and Shiva. And-”

“Wait,” Luna interrupted, “Is that not the island that is notoriously known for having Eos’s most vicious breed of Killer Wasps?”

“I am sorry, what?” King Regis asked, putting his fork down next to his now, and Noctis would thank the Astrals in about five seconds for this, empty plate. “Do you mean to tell me, _Prince_ Noctis, that you went to an island with Killer Wasps, one of the most deadly creatures on this planet, with a young man that you had only just met?”

Noctis gulped, hard. “If you put it that way-”

 

“I just-” King Regis rubbed his temple in clear frustration. “I just cannot believe how reckless you were- no - are!. You could have doomed the entire kingdom, for what? What were you trying to accomplish? Were you trying to impress this, Prompto person?”

“I-”

“Do not answer that.” King Regis held out his hand. “Answer this.” He looked up at the ceiling, mouthing something Noctis could not catch. “Did you run into any of these Killer Wasps, that I KNOW I warned you about when we visited Ravatogh, when was that, two years ago?”

“Yes.” Noctis looked his father dead in the eye. He was not going to shrivel up this time. He saved himself and Prompto from certain death. He was not ashamed of that. And how dare his father berate him for something so heroic that he really knew absolutely nothing about. Did his father not just talk about how he sent three gigantic MAs into the aether?

“Did you use… magic?” His father glared right back him and Noctis tried desperately to not falter like he had so many times before. If he could single-handedly escape from a swarm of Killer Wasps, granted there was only like three of them, he could definitely stand up to his old man.

“Yes, I did. And didn’t you just get done telling us how you used the crystal’s magic in the ring? How is this different?” Noctis sat up straighter, pulling his shoulders back, trying to hold himself like he always wanted to do before.

“These are two, incredibly different circumstances. I was forced to use the ring to protect our kingdom and your mother. You used magic to what, impress your friend?”

“And I’m not ashamed of it, Father. If it wasn’t for my magic, we could have died!”

“You shouldn’t be ashamed of your magic,” Luna spoke up, placing her hand on his forearm.

“Do not try to defend him, Luna,” King Regis bellowed from somewhere deep inside of himself. Luna’s hand softly fell away. Always the neutral Tenebraen, she was. “Noctis needs to understand that this ‘gift’ of magic, is much more of a curse than a blessing.”

“I know that, fath-”

“Clearly, you do not, Prince Noctis.” King Regis raised himself higher on his seat, dwarfing however Noctis imagined himself. “If you truly understood, you would not put yourself in these situations in the first place where you are forced to use your magic to the extent of fighting Killer Wasps and Astrals know what else.”

“Are you done?” Noctis asked, trying to mask the tears that were reflexively welling up inside him with disinterest.

“Am I done? AM. I. DONE?” King Regis took a deep breath, threatening to swallow up all the silverware and plates into his mouth. “Am I done trying to instill in the future and, might I remind you, SOLE heir of the Insomnian and Lucian throne that his actions have consequences and that every use of magic shortens our already very limited lives. And that you need to be extremely careful to not be exploited by people who would want to watch this house and Insomnia and all of Lucis fall! How well did you even know this, Prompto, kid before you got in a boat with him? For all we know he could have been a Niflheim spy!”

“First off, he is _not_ a kid. And I knew him well enough to know he isn’t a dick like you, King Conspiracy.” Noctis huffed, crossing his arms across his chest. He had done it now. And there was no going back. This was the point of no return.

“WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL-”

“I have your last course…” Flora squeaked quietly, carrying in a small tray of covered desserts. 

In their heated argument and yelling match, the two warring men did not notice that poor Flora had already come in, taken their dinner plates, and most definitely heard everything. King Regis was going to have to run reconnaissance right after dinner to make sure this did not reach The Insomnian Press and then the tabloids. That would be almost as dangerous as Noctis dying from Killer Wasps or magic-induced aging-related disease like his constant coughing precluded.

Flora shakily placed each dessert in front of the three of them and cautiously backed out. She did not get paid enough to deal with this family drama on top of all the tasks required of a maid. She really just wanted to go home and see her twin sister and not think about how insufferable and fragile the Insomnian royal family was. How she longed to be home, far away from the citadel.

“Sorry.” Noctis mouthed to her, pleading with his eyes that she not hate him.

 

Fifth Course: Tenebraen Berry Opera, “Memory Lane Pastry”

 

“How dare you call your father such a thing?!” King Regis exclaimed, boiling from the inside. If one didn’t know better, they might think Ifrit had risen from the dead in that very dining room.

“How dare you treat your son the way you do?” Noctis retaliated, neither of them anywhere near backing down. Their covered desserts went untouched; food had since been thrown to the back of their minds.

“I think,” Luna started, ushering to both of them. “That we should all take a moment and calm down. The tension and hostility in the air is palpable.”

“Well maybe because he started it!” Noctis retorted. Poor Luna had been caught in the crossfire of another one of the two men’s screaming and arguing matches. “I am twenty years old! I think I can make my own decisions once in a while!”

“Clearly, you cannot.” King Regis huffed. “If you were capable of making your own decisions you would not be making these half-brained ones that could get you killed. Gods, imagine if you actually would have died there. I just-”

“Please, you two,” Luna said, once again, somehow keeping her ever-present calm composure. “This roundabout arguing and blaming is going to get you nowhere.” She sighed. “We should just enjoy our last course and revisit this discussion, pray that it actually turns into a fruitful one, when you two have a chance to think and reflect.”

“Thank you, Luna,” King Regis told her. “You are too wise for your age.”

“You always were the mature one,” Noctis added. She had always been the one to dispel his and his father’s quarrels and get them to see each other’s side. Even if took them days or weeks. He resolved to power through this last, delicious-smelling dessert, go back to his dorm, and try to forget everything that had happened in the past two hours.

Noctis took off the dish cover and immediately dropped it on the table. 

The anger within him rose and rose faster than it had in a very long time. His hands began to shake and he could feel fire and lightning and ice and water and wind and earth start to form beneath his fingertips, spreading throughout the rest of his body. If he continued down this path, the entire table would be destroyed and probably most of the room.

“HOW COULD YOU SERVE THIS?!” Noctis screamed with a guttural noise that he had not experienced before. “How could you?” He added, quieter this time. 

He looked down at the dessert in front of him, his eyes welling up with tears so fast he could barely hold them back. If he let go for even a second, they could come down like the rain in Duscae. The two small, circular pastries sat neatly on the small dessert plate, powdered sugar covering the top. Next to each pastry were glazed blackberries and raspberries, with chocolate drizzle on top. The smell of chocolate raspberry filling permeated through each pastry, bringing back too many memories to count. The tears began their descent then, disturbing the fine layers of powdered sugar and darkening the pastries.

He looked up at his father through blurry eyes. Inside he was glad he couldn’t clearly see his father because the look on his face could make or break everything building up inside him. “How could you?”

“What are you going on about, Prince Noctis?” King Regis asked coolly, cutting a piece of his pastry and allowing the filling to slowly seep out onto the plate. “You are being quite childish.”

Noctis pushed back from the table, almost knocking down a nearby side table. He stood up, fast, and pointed at his still-seated, father who was still enjoying his piece of pastry. “My mother,” he took a deep breath. “Your wife.” He took another breath, fighting through his insane need to cry and scream. He had to get through this. “This was her favorite. This. Was. Her. Favorite!” 

He turned to look at Luna, who was always able to comfort him in his time of need. She was the one who was there for him after the accident. She was the one who cared for him as he learned to walk again. The one who taught him how to control the magic that, if he had not been so well-trained by her, would most definitely be spewing out of his hands at that very moment. She was the one who would always be there for him. 

“Noctis,” She stood up and placed her hand on his forearm and gave it a quick squeeze. She gave him a look of condolence and apology. It wasn’t enough this time. “I do not think-”

“Noctis I-” King Regis started before Noctis cut him off with his hands, which had begun to crackle with small electric currents. 

“I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU!” He said one last time before running out of the hall, not daring to look back. He kept running and running, trying to shake off the electricity from this hands, the fire from his feet, and the anger in his heart. He had to get out of there. He had to be anywhere but that god awful room.

He had to get away.

 


	8. How Everything Looks Clearer from Above

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! This is a little shorter of a chapter because I couldn't find a way to really add it to either the chapter before this one or the chapter after but I hope you enjoy it! (I sure missed Prompto last chapter, did you?) Let me know what you think about it in the comments or my inbox! Talk to y'all really soon :)

 

"I thought I might find you up here.”

Noctis turned to see Luna walking towards him, a white shawl covering her arms. Her white dress flowed in the chill Insomnian night air, resembling a cloud. They were on the uncovered walkway between the towers of the citadel, overlooking the rest of Insomnia. The crystal’s effervescent light blue glow illuminated the walkway enough for only a few scattered lamps to be needed. On top of the fact that the city truly lived up to its name: almost all of the city lights were still on, cars were still bustling around the large city. And Noctis could see it all.

“Am I that predictable?” He asked, wiping his nose to make sure no residual liquid remained. He had been crying for what seemed like forever up there, lost in thoughts all alone. His eyes were still red and puffy and he desperately needed to close them for a long period of sleep. But he wasn’t ready for just that.

“We have known each other all our lives,” Luna continued, patting the railing next to her. Noctis moved next to her and looked back over the city. “I know your special places. And where you go when you need to think and get away from it all.”

“Well at least someone still gets me.” He thought of his mother who always knew how to cheer him up whether he scraped his knee or his favorite Malboro Buddy plushie was misplaced. More often than not, it was just under his bed but it was always a national emergency. He laughed a little at that.

“What has you laughing so suddenly?” Luna asked, turning to him. Her light blue eyes found their way to his and she gave him a slight smile.

“Just thinking about my mom.” He breathed out and watched as his breath moved into the sky and disappeared. He hadn’t noticed how cold it actually was those thirty-three stories up. “She always knew how to cheer me up. Always.”

“She was a lovely person. A great queen too.” Luna moved her hand towards Noctis’s on the rail and gave it a light squeeze. “She would be proud of the person you are becoming, I know it.”

Noctis took his hand back slowly, covering it with his other. Partly for warmth, and partly, because deep down inside, he felt wrong. Like he didn’t deserve her comfort. “Would she be proud of how I blew up at dinner? I almost cast Thunder magic at you and my dad. He just…”

“You were angry with him, I understand. And emotions are very fickle things.” Luna continued, seemingly unperturbed at Noctis’s retreat of his hand. “Your father understands, as well. He just did not-”

“Didn’t think about how that dessert would make me feel?” Noctis snorted. Didn’t his father know that he hadn’t had that one dessert for over twelve years? Didn’t his father understand that the only emotions he felt for that delicious dessert were ones of undeniable sorrow? “How could he be so-”

“Noctis,” Luna turned to look at him again, more determination in her eyes. “Your father did not mean for it to end up like this. He specifically requested for the dessert as a way to bring all three of you together in that room tonight. He knew that your mother would have wanted to share that dessert with you after your first day of university.”

“Why couldn’t he have just told me that?”

“I do not think he really had the chance to. You two were so caught up in your argument that he had a momentary lapse and wasn’t able to fully articulate that.”

“I just-” Noctis started.

“And I believe I owe you an apology as well. I did not do enough to defend you or keep the dinner from getting to that extent. I just have always wanted to stay neutral between you and your father. But I think at this point, I need to take a stronger stance on your side.”

“It’s not your fault,” Noctis exhaled slowly. A singular tear shed from his eye. He didn’t wipe it away immediately, instead, letting it fall slowly down his cheek, down his chin, and onto the rail he was gripping harder than he should have. “Sorry, I just-”

“Oh, Noctis. You do not need to apologize” Luna went to place her hand on his shoulder. He moved out of her hand’s way, letting it fall back down to her side. 

“Some days it’s easier, you know?” Noctis wiped away the subsequent tears. “Like it’s gotten better to where I don’t see my mom in every car, in every woman’s face. But some days, it’s like it’s happening all over again. I just- I just can’t deal sometimes. I miss her so much.” He choked on his tears and coughed. “I- I-”

“Noctis, it is alright,” Luna reassured him, placing her hand on his shoulder. “I understand and your father understands as well. Loss is a tricky thing does not always a linear process.”

“He probably hates my guts for what I called him tonight. My mom probably hates me too, wherever she is.”

“Noctis, you are being too hard on yourself. Your father does not ‘hate your guts’. On the contrary, he loves you very much. He just,” she took a moment to collect her thoughts. “Has a particular way of showing it. You cannot honestly believe that he hates you.”

“Sometimes, it’s easier to think that,” Noctis replied. Deep down he knew that his father didn’t hate him but when someone, especially one’s own family, berates every little thing you do, no matter how small or inconsequential, it can be rather difficult to think otherwise. 

“He knows you will not be able to preside over all of Lucis perfectly, especially not right away.” She continued. “That’s why there’s a Council and attendants and people there to help you along the way when the time is right.”

“I know that, Luna,” Noctis said, with a sad dejection in his voice. “It’s so scary thinking about it.”

“I understand that feeling all too well. Do not forget how we both have destinies and callings to follow.”

“You and I,” he laugh-sighed. “We’re probably the two most burdened people on the planet. Why couldn’t the Astrals have chosen someone else?” He turned his head to the sky and screamed. “Why us?!”

“I think because we are the only two people of our generation that can ever hope of following their divine providence. The gods chose us because they know that we are the only two people that can protect and allow this planet to flourish.”

“That was probably the most ‘Oracle’ answer you could have given, Oracle.” Noctis laughed a little. “I know that the gods aren’t wrong; they’re never wrong. It just… sucks. I just wish I could have been a normal person. I missed out on so much because of this stupid title.”

“I understand from where you are coming, Noctis.” Luna sat down on a nearby bench, patting the seat next to her. “I think we are the only two people in all of Eos that can truly understand what we go through every day.”

“You’re right. I just-”

She put her finger to Noctis’s mouth. “Your mother would have forgiven you too, by the way. She would have wanted you, and your father, to continue with your lives. And not just for Lucia’s sake but for your own sakes as well.”

“You’re putting words into the dead’s mouths.”

“Maybe so, but I know that you know she would have,” Luna continued. “I did not know her for very long, and I was fairly young then, but I know she loved you more than anything in all of Eos. You are not a failure. Not in my eyes, your mother’s, or your father’s.”

“You overestimate me, I think.”

“We could never overestimate you.” Luna smiled at Noctis, hoping he would smile back. He didn’t. She turned back to look over the still-bustling city. “I know that my words will not be able to make you feel completely better or quell all of your doubts and fears. But I do hope that you will take them to heart.” She slowly stood up and turned to face Noctis. “You are the Chosen King, after all. And no matter what happens, I know you will rise to the occasion. Even if you do not believe you ever will.” She gave Noctis a quick kiss on his forehead. “You will always have me by your side to lean on if you need. But also, remember that you bloom in adversity.” 

He was only able to muster out a quick thanks or risk another waterfall of tears. He was never this open about his emotions, let alone allowing them to fall out of him so fervently.

“I must be off but do try not to stay out here too long. Okay, Noctis?” Luna said before walking back into the hallway. “We would not want you to get a cold during your first week of school, now would we?”

“I won’t,  _ mom _ .” Noctis laughed and then got solemn again. Luna was already back in the citadel and Noctis was alone once more. He wished his mom could have actually told him that. 

He wished she could have been there for a lot of things in his life.

 

She wasn’t there for his high school graduation or his first day of middle school or when his science project about how flowers bloom won First Place at his fourth-grade science fair, although whether he actually deserved the ribbon remains up to debate even to this day. Miriel, the runner-up, would swear to this day that Noctis only received the award because he was the prince. And Noctis never argued with her about it even though he knew his mother would have.

She wasn’t there to listen to his last piano recital where he performed her favorite piece, Rachmaninoff’s solo piano arrangement of Love’s Sorrow, that received a standing ovation. She would always play that for him whenever it was just the two of them in the parlor on lazy afternoons. During that entire performance, amid the hundreds of people who came to watch the one and only Crown Prince perform what could only be described as a masterpiece, he played only for one person and one person only. He truly hoped that it reached her.

She wouldn’t be there when he graduated from university, where everyone knew he was essentially obligated to give a speech even though he might not be the most qualified. He knew that she probably wouldn’t be the proudest of his grades, which were always average at best, but seeing him walk across that white and gray stage would make the world shine in all ways imaginable. But she wouldn’t be there to make that happen. 

She wouldn’t be there when he would be crowned the new King of Insomnia, with a whole coronation and ball. She wouldn’t be there to help place the crown on his head or tighten the tie around his neck. She wouldn’t there to watch where everything in his life change. For the better? For the worse?

She wouldn’t be there to watch him get married, as a proud mother watching her son marry the love of his life, rather than as a ruler watching their son marry someone fit for the kingdom. His father would take care of the last part as he so often etched into the back of Noctis’s mind with every thinly veiled remark about his and Luna’s relationship. His mother would not have stood for that.

She wouldn’t be there to catch him if he fell. 

He got up from the bench and slid his gloved hands across the cold railing. If he could, he would stay out there on that roof, taking in the cold wind and the city lights forever. He would stay there until the sun would eventually break over the far off horizon with its muted oranges and yellows. He would stay right there, in his mother’s favorite spot in the whole citadel, where she, and usually Noctis because she would almost always bring him along, could watch over all of Insomnia. 

It was there she would sing to him, brush his dark hair even though it never got as long as hers, and tell him stories of all kinds. It was there he learned that she came from Keycatrich, even though now he knew she kept most of that life hidden from him. It was there where she first told him how she had met his father, at that Waltz for the Moon. It was there she told him how she slowly yet surely fell in love with his father after that night over every cup of coffee and every picnic, away from the public eye. With every lily that he brought her and finally, on one golden afternoon, instead of a lily on top of the picnic basket, a ring.

How long would that fall be? Noctis would periodically ask himself when he would come up here, so many years after her death. Would he finally be reunited with her? He would need only climb up over the railing, which would have been a daunting task for eight-year-old him but an incredibly, and dangerously, easy feat for him now. Would Insomnia fall into disrepair? Would he really care? Just one slight movement and-

An iconic trumpet fanfare erupted from Noctis’s pocket, accompanied by an incessant vibrating motion. He took out his phone and answered it without checking the caller ID.

“I looked out my window and saw this huge plane! I wonder where it's going. Cool, huh?” A voice asked from the other line. “I never saw those in Altissia.”

“Prompto?” Noctis asked, holding his phone to his ear and backing away from the railing. He looked up to see the same plane, flying far up even to him. “Yeah, there it goes.”

“I guess we really are under the same sky.” Prompto laughed from the other line.

“Is that why you called?” Noctis really wasn’t expecting anyone to call him, especially not Prompto. Wasn’t he just standing next to a railing hundreds of feet above the ground and wondering how long it would take him to fall?

“Yes and no,” Prompto replied. “I called because I couldn’t sleep and wanted to know if you wanted to go somewhere with me.”

“Where?” Noctis asked, beginning to shiver against the cold night air. It was getting late and he should probably head back to the dorm for the night anyway.

“Well…” Prompto stopped talking for a second and Noctis could barely make out a faint ruffling of papers in the background. “I was all up in my head about actually being in Insomnia, which I don’t know if I’ll ever really get over, and I remembered this place that I went to last summer where you can get an amazing picture of the entire Insomnia skyline. I always wanted to get out there but my dad never wanted to take me and I didn’t actually have a car and the owner of the mechanic shop never let me drive his and Cindy wanted to-”

“You’re losing me, Blondie,” Noctis said, stifling the urge to laugh.

“Oh, right, sorry.” Prompto continued. “It’s right outside of the South Insomnia Bridge, near Hammerhead.” 

“And… you want me to drive you because you don’t have a car…”

“I would NEVER ask you to do such a thing!” Prompto gasped dramatically. “But… if my best friend in the entire world who happens to have a number of cars that he constantly gloated about wanted to help his best friend out by driving him to one of the best spots to get a picture of Insomnia, I would be eternally gratefully”

“For the record, I never gloated about my FAMILY cars. I just happened to mention that we have multiple cars that happen to drive very well.”

“As opposed to my zero cars.”

“It’s not my fault you lived on an island kingdom with practically no streets and maybe one car to its name.”

“And First Secretary Camelia Claustra’s, might I add, ICONIC Bentley is a thing of pure beauty. But that’s beside the point. Will you? Pleaseeeee.” Prompto whined into Noctis’s ear. Even though they were nowhere physically near each other, he could picture Prompto’s face, childish and incredibly cute with his light blue puppy dog eyes. The ones he could never say no to.

“Fine. But on one condition,” Noctis got up from the bench.

“Anything my dear Noct.”

“You don’t go anywhere near the steering wheel.”

“You’re literally no fun whatsoever. I DID work at Hammerhead for an entire summer, fixing up cars.”

“You just said the owner of Hammerhead never let you drive his car.”

“That had more to do with him being overprotective of his baby than-”

“You have to say it or you’re staying in your dorm and never leaving ULI because _you_ don’t have a car.”  
“You’re a monster, you know that?”

“I actually do.” Noctis laughed. “I’ll be there in fifteen.” 

“See ya!”

Noctis hung up and looked down at his phone. He had just been crying his eyes out to Luna about his mom and his father and everything that is future threatened. He had just been, although not too seriously, contemplating jumping off one of, if not, the tallest building in all of Insomnia. But here he was, goofily smiling at his phone because he had just made last-minute plans to drive all the way to Leide with Prompto in a car that he wasn’t even sure he was allowed to drive after the last incident with a stop sign and a poor defenseless Kenny the Crow statue. 

How could this one boy change his mood so quickly? Would his mother’s spirit, if she was even there, be angry at him for shrugging her memory away so quickly? Would Luna be disappointed that she couldn’t make him smile as much as Prompto had just done? Would his dad ever forgive him for calling him a dick in front of company, even if it was just Luna who had seen and heard far worse from him before? Would he ever forgive himself for all of the above and more?

Nevertheless, he was ready for a change.

  
  
  



	9. How a Cliff is the Perfect Place for Almost Anything

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOWOWOWOW. Hi everyone! I can't believe it's been over a month since I last updated!!! I'm so sorry about that everyone; I've been having a time adjusting to working full-time and not being a student anymore and let me tell you, it's been rough. So rough I wasn't finding the inspiration to write at all which is so weird to me. But after a lot of late-night video game sessions and general procrastinating, I've finally found my way back to his fic which is like my child if I were to ever have one. So, hopefully, this is the start of a long stretch of creativity and inspiration for me, but I can't promise anything because video games are really fun and not doing things can be as fun or more fun than doing things. But just don't forget that I'll never forget about his fic or any of you that are somehow still here reading this fic!

 

“Wowowow,” Prompto exclaimed when Noctis pulled up in front of his dormitory. 

He was driving the car that his father had commissioned for his twentieth birthday, an Audi R8 “Star of Lucis.” He had been lucky enough to sneak past Flora, Jared, and two others waitstaff and grab the keys from their place in one of the three garages without being caught. If he hadn’t been in super-spy mode, he no doubt would have to explain to someone, preferably not his father, why he suddenly needed the car even though it was basically Ignis’s job to drive him around everywhere. But then that would beg the question why his father even had a car commissioned for him if he wasn’t ever really supposed to drive in the first place. And in the end, he was in the mood to ask for forgiveness rather than permission; especially tonight.

“Are you just gonna stare or get in?” Noctis asked from the driver's seat, itching to get back on the road. He hadn’t driven in months and was excited to really get behind the wheel. That feeling of being in complete control of something bigger than himself was something that Noctis cherished; it was probably the only time he ever had complete control over something. If he wanted to, he could just drive off the road or into a tree or the side of a building… although those thoughts were always “what if’s” rather than actually wanting to. Like he had the power to do them, but never actually would...

“Heck yes!” Prompto squealed. He jumped into the passenger seat and rubbed his hands on the dashboard. “Cars are literally one of the greatest things in the world!”

“You really missed cars back on Altissia, didn’t you?” Noctis said as he put on his seatbelt. He remembered all the time that Prompto had gone on unprompted soliloquies about the cars he and his dad had worked on over that cruel summer, from new Hyundai’s to ancient Rolls Royce’s. The irony that he had never actually had a car of his own was never lost on Prompto; it was always on the back of Noctis’s mind for sure. 

“I know right,” Prompto said, playing with the air conditioning and trying to work the stereo. “Living in Altissia was great in almost all ways except for the horrific lack of any cars. Maybe that’s why my dad was always traveling. Hammerhead was so--- oh my gosh, this song is the best!” Noctis laughed at how carefree Prompto was, making himself at home in his car, not even a whole minute after getting in. 

_ Midnight, you come and pick me up, no headlights _

_ Long drive, could end in burning flames or paradise _

“You said you’ve met Taylor before?” Prompto asked, jamming to one of her greatest songs ever from her Grammy award-winning album,  _ 1989 _ .

“Yeah, she performed at a benefit that was held at the citadel a couple of years back,” Noctis replied, tapping his hands to the beat on the steering wheel. “She’s super down-to-earth and nice. Like every good thing you’ve ever heard about her is completely true.”

“Dang, that’s so cool. When you’ve grown up with die-hard fans like Meredith and Olivia, you start to really like her or, how the cool kids say, ‘stan’ her?”

“Maybe when Meredith and Olivia come to visit, I can try to introduce you all to her.”

“Ha,” Prompto sighed. “IF my family visits.”

“Wait what does-”

“This is the best part! You HAVE to sing with me!” Prompto exclaimed, bumping up the volume. 

“But I-” Noctis started.

“You've got that long hair slicked back, white t-shirt/And I got that good girl faith and a tight little skirt/And when we go crashing down, we come back every time/'Cause we never go out of style, we never go out of style!” Prompto sang first then Noctis came in around the second line, both singing their hearts out. Noctis had never sung with anyone in the car, not even Luna. Well, that might have been more a reflection on the fact that Noctis rarely ever drove himself, let alone anyone else. But this was so different. 

“Gods, I love this song,” Prompto sighed, rolling his window down. He put his right hand out the window and had it swim in the wind. “She’s such an amazing songstress, right Noct?”

“Yeah she really is,” Noctis replied as they crossed from the city onto the Insomnian bridge. 

The cables leading up to the first of the two towers were dimly lit by white lights. Noctis had always been entranced by these lights that seemed to go on forever to his childhood self, wishing to be able to fly up and up over the towers and across Lucis. His mother had always told him when they were driving over the bridge that he would be able to touch the stars one day, even if he was still firmly planted on the ground. Whatever that was supposed to mean. 

“This was actually the first song I ever drove to alone,” Noctis said. The bridge of the song started. Taylor pleaded to be taken home, but all he wanted to do was stay on that actual bridge with Prompto for as long as he could. When this was all over, he would be back in Insomnia, the same person, with the thoughts of that dinner to haunt him for at least a couple of days before the next misfired conversation between son and father happened all over again. 

“Really?” Prompto asked, his hand still ebbing and flowing with the wind like a dolphin even though it probably chilled him to the bone. “That sounds so epic!”

“It was pretty epic, yeah.” The chorus came back with its blending harmonies and Noctis thought back to his first time driving alone.

He was eighteen and it was a week after he had finally got his license after vehemently being against being behind the wheel of a car. Even though he refused to acknowledge it then, everyone knew it was entirely due to the accident, even if he didn’t remember most of it.  He had just been out with Ignis, Gladio, and Gladio’s little sister, Iris, at a diner in Apnea, one of the surrounding suburbs of Insomnia that was still inside the New Wall. (He hadn’t been allowed outside of the New Wall without a whole retinue of Crownsguard and at least one ranking official from the inner circle which, thankfully, contained both Gladio and Ignis.) All three of them had to go somewhere else right after dinner, leaving Noctis to drive himself back to his apartment, alone. He was terrified beyond belief even though he had been driving for a while before then, just never just himself in the car. 

Who would have told him to brake if he happened to overlook a stop sign? Who would have warned him if a pedestrian he hadn’t seen decided to walk in front of him?  Who would be there if the unthinkable happened?

He pulled out of that diner parking lot, his stomach full of french fries and a delicious fried chicken sandwich, no lettuce or tomato of course, and the rest of his body screaming to find an excuse for Ignis to drive with him. Or, even better, drive him. He pushed those thoughts down to where they couldn’t cloud his mind and kept on driving and soon enough, he was on a freeway heading back to downtown, no accidents or even potential accidents at all. No sneaky stop signs. No crazy pedestrians. No unthinkable accidents.

He turned on the radio out of habit even though he knew that he probably would have been able to pay more attention to the road without any musical distractions. And the song that came on was none other than  _ Style.  _ That’s when everything finally clicked into place. He was free. The opening instrumental became synonymous with his freedom on the open road, well, open freeway in the middle of a congested metropolitan area. And from them on, driving was ever so slightly less scary until it finally wasn’t.

Music had always been a way for Noctis to bring him back to himself, whether he needed to remember why he was the way he was or to remember those special memories of his mom, his friends, or just himself. And this song was now a tangible example of that. 

“This bridge is literally so cool,” Prompto said as they neared the end of the Insomnian bridge and he pulled out his camera to take some preliminary pictures of it while they were still driving through. He put most of his torso out of the open window and turned around to get a better picture of the Insomnian skyline bordered by that iconic bridge. That would for sure get him some street, or “bridge”, cred with his fellow classmates and professors; even if it silently scared Noctis half to death that most of his body was out the window.

“Yeah…” Noctis trailed off, bringing himself back to the present and getting ready to come up to the security checkpoint leading into the Leide region. Given that Noctis hadn’t been allowed outside the New Wall with much freedom until he had graduated high school at the ripe age of eighteen, he had never gone through the checkpoint without Ignis or his father or someone else from the citadel before. But how hard could it be? All he had to do was hand over… What did he need to hand over again? Was it-

“Identification?” A young-sounding voice asked from the booth. Noctis looked up to see a young man who couldn’t be that much older than Prompto and him. Noctis took out his wallet and went to grab his license, which was the only piece of identification he had on his person. 

He did not know that most people were supposed to bring their passport to this checkpoint ever since the most recent Niflheim scare in Tenebrae. The general public was not made aware of the actual reason for the change but he should have known that. Even though he was the Crown Prince, he did not, for reasons that were still the start of many arguments between him and his father. Which probably underlined at least a few comments his father made at the dinner table. 

He always quivered when he looked at the driver’s license photo he had taken on his eighteenth birthday. 

He wasn’t ready for the flash of the camera. He didn’t know whether or not to smile. He had brushed his hair earlier that day but somehow it had gotten even worse during his test. And even though he was crown royalty, the DMV was still not a great place, with its monotone workers who got paid too little to deal with the clientele who did not care that the workers had families and dreams of their own that did not involve calming telling someone why they couldn’t just walk in without an appointment and expect immediate help. He was not about to wait another year to have his picture retaken, even if he was probably one of the most influential and powerful people in all of Insomnia.

Waiting at the DMV is a universal tragedy felt by both plebeians and the bourgeoisie.

“Here you go.” Noctis handed his license to “Mars Sapientia (Cartanica) Proudly protecting Insomnia since M.E. 755”. He had silver-gray hair and light green eyes. There was a hint of stubble around his jaw that was probably the result of having to work the night shift. He looked at least six inches taller than Noctis and had much more defined arms than him or Prompto. His dad and his Council had picked a decent-looking guy for the Crownsguard even if he was a bit young. And Noctis already didn’t like him.

“You really need to have your passpo- Oh, sorry, Your… Your Highness.” Mars partly gasped and partly whispered out. Clearly, this was one of his days on the job and having to interact with the Crown Prince was probably not in his handbook. Most of the Crownsguard held some type of cool demeanor to his face and freaked out when he left but could still, unbeknownst to them, hear them. This “Mars” would have to learn that sooner rather than later or get ready for the sweet release of unemployment.

“Thanks. I’ll make sure to bring my passport next time,” Noctis replied, taking back his ID and throwing it back into his wallet so Prompto wouldn’t be able to look at it for too long, or at all. Embarrassing. 

“No problem, Your Highness. Security has been getting tighter ever since the recent threat made against Tenebrae,” Mars blabbered out, clearly entranced by him. He would have to rein that in if he was ever going to make it in the Crownsguard very long. “I heard a rumor that-”

“Wait, are you in PSYC 1 with Professor Auburnbrie?” Prompto interrupted, reaching over Noctis with his chest very close to Noctis’s face. He smiled at Mars, flashing that same pearly white smile that had captivated Noctis the first time they met. 

Noctis felt something growing in the pit of his stomach and rise into his chest. His heart started to beat just a bit faster and he could swear that his hands were beginning to form a sweat. He almost wanted to vomit but not in a horrific way. What was this feeling? So sudden, so new?

“Yeah, the one who talked about a conspiracy with ancient tombs all under Lucis housing terrifying monsters?” Mars asked, smiling back at Prompto. He was probably indulging the conversation given that:

  1. He was in the presence of Prince Noctis and didn’t know whether or not he was allowed to ignore him or whoever his friend was
  2. There were no cars behind them and probably hadn’t been since the beginning of shift two hours prior 
  3. He had already proven to be a bit more chatty than most Crownsguard, which made Noctis dislike him even more, not even ten minutes after somewhat meeting him
  4. Most importantly, he might have just wanted someone to talk to that wasn’t his supervisor who was suspiciously absent. Noctis would look into that.



“Yeah! She’s the one!” Prompto replied, smiling pretty widely. “I’m excited to actually learn about psychology even if it really has nothing to do with my major.”

“And what’s your major, Mr…”

“Oh, I’m a photo-” Prompto started when Noctis squirmed in his seat. Partly to get back on the road and partly to make himself less stiff, in more ways than one. This was not a position he wanted to be in any longer. 

“Oh, okay, Your Highness. Just give me a moment,” Prompto whispered sarcastically to the clearly jumpy Noctis. Noctis did not want to give him a moment but before he could contest, Prompto kept trudging on. “Maybe I’ll see you in class tomorrow, Mars.” Prompto squinted to read his name tag, and just his name tag, not his defined upper body or his arms or-

“Yeah, that would be great, Mr…”

“Oh, sorry,” Prompto said, reaching ever further across Noctis, brushing up against his nether regions. Noctis willed himself to think of literally anything else than the fact that Prompto was so close to it, rustling it with every breath he took or slight adjustment. He HAD to get out of there! 

Prompto held out his passport which Noctis could see was shaking ever so slightly in his hand. Was Prompto nervous? “Prompto Argentum, from Altissia.”

“Nice to meet you, Prompto,” Mars flashed him a smile, showcasing his own perfect smile, and handed back his passport.  “I’ll try to save you a seat in class tomorrow if I get there before you, yeah?”  
“Well, now I want to get there before you. Sooo... I guess it’s a race now” Prompto laughed that infectious, bubblegum laugh. Noctis bet that Prompto would have tried to place his hand on Mars’s shoulder or upper arm if he wasn't stuck in a car with him. How had he turned into a third wheel in his own car? That was the only reason he was getting more and more anxious to get on the road. Obviously.

“You should know I’m very competitive,” Mars gave a sly smirk at Prompto. Noctis shook in his seat but not enough to disturb Prompto who was still dubiously perched across him. Why was he doing this? He had a girlfriend who he loved more than anything in the world. Right? 

“Game on, Mars.” Prompto laughed and sat back into his seat. “Sorry.” He whispered to Noctis who only replied with a gruff noise that he meant to be a “You’re Welcome” but ended up being nowhere near that in tone or actual words. Yikes. 

“Have a nice night, Your Highness,” Mars said to Noctis who was now staring straight ahead into the dark expanse of the Leide desert. That dark expanse would be his only reprieve from this extremely uncomfortable experience, save from pressing the imaginary eject button he would have done way before then if he could. He would have to complain to Ignis how that eject button that he was so vehemently against would have come in handy at that moment. 

Noctis didn’t reply and just drove past the checkpoint and further into Leide. He did NOT want to see that guy again but wasn’t entirely sure why. At least he didn’t want to admit it even he knew.   
  


* * *

“So what’d you think of Mars?” Prompto asked while setting up his tripod. He had told Noctis while they were driving further into Leide that his parents had bought him the tripod as a present for getting off the waitlist to ULI. They were so proud of him for not giving up on dream school, even if he hadn’t gotten in right away. 

“I didn’t think much of him?” Noctis asked, trying not to show how much he wanted to scream inside.

“What is that supposed to- wait, can you stand…” Prompto ran up to Noctis, shifted him two feet to the left so he would be more in line with the shot he wanted. “Awesome, that looks-” Prompto looked into the camera. “Perfect.” 

Prompto took the first picture of the night: A shot of Noctis looking out towards the Insomnian bridge with his back to the camera. His silhouette was completely black so that the viewer would not know that the subject was the Crown Prince of Lucis unless they were present. He didn’t want anyone in his classes to think about his photography any differently if they knew the actual Crown Prince was a part of it. He needed to break out on his own first. 

“Okay, this time sit on this…” Prompto surveyed the area, looking for a tree stump, or a small hill, or a “Rock!” Prompto led Noctis to a large, smooth rock near the edge of the cliff that led down into the water below. He placed his hands on Noctis’s shoulders and placed him in a “perfect” position that made Noctis quake in his skin. What was happening to him?

“Anyway, what did you mean by that?” Prompto asked again when he was back behind his camera.

“I just…” SNAP. “I mean I barely talked to him. You were the one who basically crawled over me to talk to him.”

“Oh yeah,” Prompto said, fidgeting with the tripod to get a different angle. “Sorry about that. He’s just like… really cute, you know?” Prompto sighed dreamily into his camera, fogging up the lens. “Oh, wait. This is such a cool effect!” He took a quick shot and relished at the new filter he had just created. “If I don’t get an A in this photography class I think I’m going to stage a revolution against the art department. Full-on  _ Les Mis _ style, without the horrifying death and pain felt by the working class in the Tenebraen revolution of course. Maybe I could find someone in the theatre department to choreograph and compose and- oh move a little to your left?”

“I don’t…” Noctis started, “never mind.” What was he trying to accomplish here?

“Wait, what, Noct?” Prompto asked, wiping down his lens. He didn’t want his breath fog to completely ruin the lens of his one and only camera. His parents could barely afford the tripod, let alone a whole other camera that could be as nice as this one he got from an anonymous donor when they had first moved to Altissia.

“Nothing, Prompto.” Noctis needed this conversation to end before it even started.

“No, it’s something. And we’re still best friends, right???” Prompto was safely behind his camera-tripod apparatus so Noctis couldn’t see his expression on top of the fact that it was a very dark night with only the stars and moon in the sky shedding light on them. 

“Of course we are. Just, do you even really know Mars?”  
“Not really… but isn’t that why people talk to each other? And try to make friends? Especially if one of them is really cute, like did you see his green eyes and how they have those really pretty golden specks in them?” Prompto sighed dreamily. “And I would assume a Crownsguard probably went through some type of security clearance or something so he’s not like an ax murderer and we know how I feel about those. Killing baby ax’s parents and all that.”

Noctis wanted to laugh but for some reason, he couldn’t. “I mean he needs to learn how to keep his mouth shut about confidential security issues. And his eyes weren’t THAT pretty and I didn’t see any of those golden specks.” Noctis went behind the camera so Prompto could take full nature shots. “But…”

“Noctis, are you…” Prompto looked into the lens. “Jealous?”  
“Uh…” Noctis took a second to respond. Was he… jealous? Of his best friend maybe liking another guy? The best friend who he hadn’t actually spoken to for an entire month because he was busy being a stupid idiot? “Noooo…. I’m just, uh, looking out for you.”

“Well thanks for the concern, Noct,” Prompto replied. “But I’ve got this. If you don’t want me to talk about guys though, I get it. I wouldn’t want to like weird you out or anything. Especially because you know.. and about what I said when you left me before class today, forget about it. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Oh, okay,” Noctis replied. He wasn’t sure why he felt crestfallen at that. “But, really it’s not that at all.” Maybe he was trying to convince himself that was all it was. Doesn’t putting something out in the world make it real?

“Well, cool.” Prompto smiled. “He’s pretty cute like I said. And wouldn’t it be cool if-”

“Whoa, is that a shooting star?” Noctis pointed into the sky, glad for the momentary distraction. One of the Astrals must have been looking out for him to help him eject himself from that conversation. If only they had been there thirty minutes before. The gods are fickle creatures. 

“Oh shoot, it is!” Prompto exclaimed, quickly taking his camera from the tripod and pointing it to the night sky. “Dang it. I guess shooting stars get camera shy like the rest of us.”

“Shooting stars…” Noctis whispered to himself. How many times had he wished upon one of those to talk to his mom again, or for his dad to finally be proud of him, or to be a normal teenage boy without the weight of the world on his shoulders, almost literally?

“Yeah…” Prompto replied, which surprised Noctis. (Noctis may not have realized he said that out loud) “They’re pretty cool, aren't they?”  
  
“Yeah, they are. Have you ever-”

“Wished on one of them?” Prompto asked. Noctis nodded. “More times than I can count.”

“Really?” Noctis asked.  
  
“Yeah. Like I wished to not be gay, to be normal, a lot.” Prompto gave a small pitiful laugh. “Like a lot. Like almost every day. Instead of praying to the Astrals and wishing for a new video game or even a new camera,” he patted the camera around his lower chest. “I wished I could be more like all the other guys in my class. A guy who could just make out with a girl and like it and not be, you know, gay.”

“Oh,” Noctis said. 

A silence fell upon the two of them. Why hadn’t Noctis said something more substantial or supportive? Why did he just say “Oh?” How could he just stand there and let Prompto say all that stuff without so much as a-

“Sorry for killing the mood, ha ha,” Prompto said, going back to fiddle with his camera, trying not to look at Noctis or make any kind of eye contact with him.  “I can do that sometimes.”

“No, you didn’t kill the mood.” Noctis finally spoke up. “Sorry, I’m just… not that good at talking about my feelings.” With you, about this, he wanted to add. “I think you’re fine just the way you are.”

“Thanks, Noct. I don’t feel that way anymore, though.” Prompto started packing up his tripod, satisfied with the night’s haul. “I can’t even tell you the last time I wanted to be straight. You guys kinda suck,” He shoved Noctis’s shoulder. “No offense, though.”

“Ha ha,” Noctis awkwardly laughed. Prompto just said he was straight again. Yeah. He WAS straight. If this de facto gay guy said he was straight, then he totally was. He just got his straight card. Maybe he could use it for a discount at straight stores or use it to get into straights only clubs. That’s the way sexuality works. Obviously. 

“It’s taken me a lot to get to this point,” Prompto started again, staring into the dark abyss of the ocean. Noctis walked up next to him, daunted by the sheer black of the water below them and, honestly, whatever might come next in their conversation. They weren’t just physically on what seemed like a very slippery slope. “Where I can finally be comfortable with who am I and who I like and be able to talk about guys like all the guys in my class, with their raging hormones and locker room talk, talked about girls. Which of course, you know because of that last talk we had about…” Prompto sighed nostalgically into the night air. “Chrom. It’s really freeing.”

“That’s great, Prom,” Noctis replied, trying his hardest to pay attention to him as the black waves lapped against the cliff below. How many times had he thought of jumping from a height like this, besides earlier that night, to be reunited with his mother? To not be a paralyzed eight-year-old in Tenebrae? To not be anything anymore? 

“You, alright there, Noct?” Prompto asked, putting his hand on Noctis’s shoulder. “If I’m repeating myself like I always do again and you’re too tired to deal with it, we can head back. I’ve got most of the pictures I needed.”

“Sorry, Prompto,” Noctis said wiping away a tear from his right eye. He had to open up to Prompto. How were they supposed to be “best friends” if he didn’t? If Prompto could open up about being gay and about wishing he was straight, he could open up about this. He was strong enough. He had to be. 

“You don’t have to apologize, Noct. You like to apologize for things that you shouldn’t have to. It’s a messed up human habit.”

“Oh, sorry.” 

Prompto slapped his shoulder. “What did I just say?!”

“Oh yeah. I mean like I kinda stole your thunder by being all emo over here.” 

“Hey, you can’t steal something if I give it to you. So here,” Prompto made some electricity, crackling noises and pretended to shoot a lightning bolt at Noctis. “Here’s my thunder.” 

“I think that’s lightning, not thunder.” Noctis corrected him, smiling a little. 

“You know what I mean, Noct. Now tell me, what’s on your princely mind?”

“Whenever I would wish on a shooting star,” Noctis sat on the rock he had sat on previously that was big enough for both of them. Prompto sat down next to him and they both looked out over the water and the night sky’s reflection. “I would wish that my mom was still alive and could still hold me and sing me to sleep and read me stories and-” Noctis sniffled his nose. “When she died, it felt a huge part of me died too.” 

“I bet,” Prompto said, placing his hand on Noctis’s knee. “I remember when Queen Aulea died all of Lucis was devastated. I can’t even begin to imagine how it must have been for you.” 

“Thanks, Prompto,” Noctis said, wiping his nose to get any snot off. There wasn’t any but it felt like there was. And how unattractive is leftover snot? “It’s a little strange when I think about it.” 

“What is, Noct?”

“How public my life is.”

“What do you mean? I thought you knew how being a prince kinda made you like an instant celebrity and everyone would want to know every little thing about you?”

“No, I get that. It’s just…” Noctis took a moment to think about how he was going to articulate what he wanted to say next. “You knew that my mom, who most people knew as Queen Aulea, died and how all of Lucis was devastated. But do you remember how she died?”

Prompto scrunched his eyebrows and squinted his eyes in thought the way that always made Noctis smile. Like looking at the cutest little bean in the world trying his hardest to come up with the cure for cancer or a word other than “like” to intercalate into every one of his breaths. 

“She died in a car accident, right?” Prompto asked, trying not to accidentally insert his trademark enthusiasm that always seemed to permeate in his speech and overall demeanor. It wasn’t the right place or time.

“That’s what the official press release said, anyway,” Noctis corrected him. “It was the biggest headline that month, ‘Beloved Queen Aulea Killed in Tragic Vehicle Accident’ or ‘Mother of Eight-Year-Old Prince Killed in Hit and Run’ or-”

“Noctis, you’re shaking,” Prompto told him, placing both of his hands on Noctis’s trembling arms. “You don’t need to talk about it anymore. You need to take a few breaths and then we can go back to campus and we can talk about-”

“No,” Noctis replied, steeling himself and taking a deep long breath. He shook himself to get rid of whatever was holding him back from telling this story. The story that had gone unspoken by the one person who was present in that horrible car accident: himself. “It’s not that.”

“Then what is it, Noct?”  
Noctis took another, shorter breath. “It’s the fact that I remember almost nothing from that accident. I just remember horns blaring, flashing lights, blood, her face, and then… nothing.”

“Nothing?” Prompto moved his hand into Noctis’s. “It’s alright, Noct. You don’t need to remember that accident, right? As long as you remember all the good times you had with her?”

“I mean, I guess.” Noctis looked off into the dark abyss once more, letting go of Prompto’s hand. The tears weren’t coming for once but what he felt was so much worse than that. Worse than sadness or anger. It was something much more than that. An emotion he just couldn’t grasp. “It’s all like the water,” Noctis gestured to the lapping waves against the cliffside. “Black and deep and something I’ve always wanted to know but also never want to know, ever. The news headlines are all I know from that night, and most of them were just about a beautiful life lost, how I miraculously survived, what could have caused such a horrendous accident, if it was an accident, if-” Noctis began to hyperventilate, unable to draw an adequate amount of air. 

“Whoa, Noct,” Prompto put his hand on Noctis’s back. “Breathe with me. In. Out. In. Out.”

Listening to Prompto cool and calm voice began to bring Noct back from his inner cliff. How he could have used Prompto so many times before when he was home alone and something tipped him off. Like the smell of peppermint and vanilla. Or if he couldn’t find Carby for more than a minute. “There we go.”

“Thanks, Blondie. Sorry about- I mean. Thanks.”

Prompto smiled at Noctis, a closed mouth smile but somehow that was more than his exuberant bubblegum smile could have done for him at that moment.“I can’t even begin to understand your hurt, Noct. But I can try my best to be here for you. Like you’ve been there for me. And maybe one day you’ll get the answers you deserve. And when you do, I’ll be there for you. Because what are best friends for?”

“Promise me you won’t leave?”

“Only if you promise me that too.”


	10. How a Simple Game of Tennis, Advice, and a New Dragon Friend Help Everyone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ENJOY A SECOND CHAPTER ON THE SAME NIGHT WOOOOOOOO WHEN CREATIVITY STRIKES IT COMES IN LIKE A WRECKING BALL WHAT IS LIFE

“So you’re telling me that you want MY advice?” Gladiolus asked while bouncing the tennis ball, getting ready for his next serve. Noctis had already won the last five games, with Gladio trailing at a measly two.. And Noctis really wanted to win. Tennis was the only sport that he could ever actually have a chance at beating Gladio, with his bulging muscles and overall physique. Tennis just didn’t come the most naturally to Gladio, and Noctis was banking on that. Until he wouldn’t be able to anymore. 

It was only a matter of time.   
  


* * *

 

A month had passed since Noctis and Prompto’s impromptu nighttime photoshoot and they had seen each other quite a bit in the past few weeks. Prompto had, in fact, beaten Mars to their PSYC 1 class and saved him a seat that second day. The two of them became fast friends, which irked Noctis quite a bit even if Prompto still spent most of his time with Noctis. It just wasn’t fair.

Even so, Noctis and Prompto had begun sitting with each other in COS 1, Prompto still being the teacher’s pet, always raising his hand, and Noctis trying his best to go unnoticed after that fiasco on the first day. Whether or not they would sit in the front to be the first to answer questions and be part of demonstrations or sit in the back to be aloof and invisible was always a point of contention. Although Prompto always seemed to win once he brought out his trademarked puppy dog eyes.

They ate lunch together on most days, Noctis putting most of the vegetables that compulsorily came with his cafeteria meals on Prompto’s plate and Prompto not outwardly judging him like Ignis always did. Noctis enjoyed those lazy afternoons, getting food and joking with Prompto, without a care in the world besides midterms and projects and the occasional royalty chasing fan-people, boys and girls. Those days were his favorite, except when Mars decided to show up on randomly and join them. Noctis had never really spent time with a Crownsguard member that wasn’t Ignis or Gladio and he convinced himself that was the only reason he dreaded those lunches. Not the fact that Mars and Prompto would sometimes shoot each other furtive glances and Prompto would not-so-subtly place his hand on Mars’s forearm and Mars wouldn’t move it. Noctis hated how it made him feel like a third wheel. 

He would never be a tricycle.    
  


* * *

 

“Is that so weird?” Noctis said after returning Gladio’s serve. The ball flew over the net gracefully and Gladio struggled to return it just for Noctis to hit it back on the other side of the court, too far for Gladio to reach in time. Gladio may have been strong but flexible he was not. 

“I just mean, wouldn’t Iggy be a better person to give you advice?” Gladio asked, getting ready for his next serve. “Isn’t that like his job or something?”

“So?” Noctis said, returning the ball back towards Gladio who hit it back so hard it flew out of the court. “I think that’s out.” Noctis laughed. 

“You think you’re funny, huh Noct?” Gladio yelled from his side of the court. That was the last of the tennis balls they had brought and neither of them felt inclined to chase after all the balls that Gladio had hit out. He was a really strong guy but that particular skill set did not exactly line up with what tennis required. “How about we take a break and you tell Old Gladio what’s got you all riled up.” (Noctis rolled his eyes at that.)

Gladio sat down on the nearest bench in the court and opened his green elixir, the most popular energy drink in all of Eos. He took a sip and relished in its cool and refreshing taste with an audible sigh. Legend has it that if one of the royal families blessed an elixir or their derivatives like potions and ethers, they had magical properties. Stories range from healing the worst of injuries or making people’s farts come out in different colors, whatever that’s supposed to mean. Noctis had never tried it himself even though deep down he really wanted to. The fear of losing a piece of life force with every cast of magic was a big enough deterrent from even thinking about making a drink into a health concoction or rainbow fart creator. 

“Well let’s say I have this friend,” Noctis said, dancing his tennis racket between his legs. “Let’s call him, Niles.” 

“Interesting name but alright.” Gladio laughed and then finished his elixir in one long gulp. He wasn’t the reigning shotgun champion at ULI for nothing. Someone was going to need to take his spot when he graduated at the end of the school year.

“Anyway,” Noctis started again after taking a sip of his own grape-flavored elixir. “So let’s say Niles likes this person, Peri. Well, he thinks he might like this Peri person. But he’s not sure if Peri likes him back or if they just see him as a friend. Like they hang out a lot but-”

“Is ‘Peri’ a guy or a girl?” Gladio asked, leaning his back on the tennis court fence.

“Does it matter?” Noctis asked, trying to keep a straight face. The irony was lost on him, of course.

“Well yeah. Kinda. Like-”

“Like what?” Noctis tried his best not to show that he was beginning to get a little flustered. Why did it matter? Can’t people have feelings for each other without gender getting in the way? And isn’t gender a fluid concept? How was a guy liking a guy that much different than a guy liking a girl? Wasn’t love love no matter what?

“Well…” Gladio took a second to think. “I mean, if Peri is a girl it would probably be easier for, Niles, right?” Noctis nodded. “But if Peri’s a guy, then Niles would have to like think about all that gay stuff, right?”  
“What ‘gay’ stuff?” Noctis asked. Maybe asking Gladio wasn’t the best idea. Ignis would probably have been a much better and more empathetic listener and advisor. But, really, Noctis didn’t want to ask Ignis because asking an actual gay guy about something like this would make it feel too real. Like putting these feelings, even if they were hidden behind fake names he got from a video game based on an ancient myth, out in the open for all to hear was terrifying to him. And having an actual “gay” opinion would just compound all of it. Especially because he didn’t actually know if what he was feeling was one hundred percent real. Maybe he was just confused. 

“Like, coming out, if he’s not already, and having to deal with idiots like me who are clearly messing this advice stuff up.” Gladio scratched the back of his head. “Sorry bro, I’m not really used to this whole ‘giving advice.’ You know me, I kinda just do things and ask the important questions later.” 

Noctis remembered the one time Gladio had left Insomnia to hone his strength and try to find inspiration to be Noctis’s Shield and ended up getting lost in the Taelpar Crag, a giant canyon in central Lucis. He wasn’t found for about a week until Cor Leonis, the former commander of the entire Crownsguard, found him, unable to walk and on the verge of death. Gladio didn’t regret it though and to this day, testified that what he might have lost he more than gained in knowledge and a newfound inspiration to be Noctis’ Shield until the end of time. Noctis always thought that was extremely cliche but was secretly proud of how Gladio did what he put his mind to and ended up getting something that changed his life forever. The closest he came was living in Altissia for that long, hot summer but that wasn’t even his idea. He hadn’t even wanted to go. And what did he really gain out of it besides these confusing feelings and thoughts and question?

“No, I get it,” Noctis replied. Maybe it wasn’t fair for him to dump all of this on him. Like Gladio said, he wasn’t used to giving advice, like this or ever. And this was a lot. “It’s just, Niles, is really torn up about all of this because he really likes Peri as a friend and isn’t even sure Peri likes him the way that he might like them.”

“Wait, give me a second to try to understand what you just said.” Gladio laughed and rubbed his temples in fake concentration. Ignis would have been MUCH better. 

“And Peri might totally, and by might, I mean totally does have a crush on this guy Marth that Niles might hate solely because Marth is taking Peri away from him.” Noctis continued on. “And like Marth probably isn’t the worst guy in the world but the fact that he’s taking Peri away from Niles makes Niles want to banish Marth away from Lucis forever.” Noctis took a much-needed breath. “But like Peri has been spending so much time with Marth, on top of also spending some time with Niles, but like whenever he’s spending time with Marth, he’s not spending time with Niles, and whenever he IS spending time with Niles, he always manages to bring up Marth in conversation.”

“And Niles is super jealous because he wants Peri all to himself, and Peri is a guy? A girl?”

“Like Niles knows that he shouldn’t be like this and Peri sees him as a great friend and probably doesn’t have anybody else to talk about their crushes with and just wants Niles’s advice and maybe for Niles to encourage Peri to make a move.”  
“But there is no way in Ifrit’s hellfire that he would help Peri get with his? Her? Crush even if Niles isn’t even sure if he likes him? Her?”

“Yes! Exactly, you get it!” Noctis exclaimed, twirling his tennis racket in his jittery hands. “I just don’t know what to do.”

“Like what to tell Niles?”

“What?” Oh, right. He was using fake names. Yikes. “Oh, yeah. What to tell, my friend, Niles.”

“Well, not going to lie, Niles sounds super selfish.”

“Wait, really?” Was he being selfish? Noctis was pretty sure that if Prompto had been crushing on someone that wasn’t Mars he might act differently. Like if Prompto's crush wasn’t such an incompetent Crownsguard that blabbed on and on about confidential Lucian security and such a snob about psychology, like knowing what a Freud is and what that the hippocampus isn’t actually a college campus for forgetful hippopatamuses/hippopatami?, Noctis would totally have approved. At least he told himself that.

“Well, yeah. He basically wants to keep Peri away from his/her rush because he’s not sure about how he feels about her?! HIM?!?!?” Gladio almost knocked over his own tennis racket in his fervor on finding out Peri’s gender, not remembering all the times Ignis tried to explain to him that not everyone falls into the gender binary. But, like always, Gladio was more focused on his next meal and workout than listening Ignis’s lectures drone on and on. “Like he wants Peri all for himself and no one else and that’s not very fair to Peri.”

“I didn’t even think about that.” Noctis thought back to all the times he had guilted Prompto into staying over just a little longer in his dorm to play Smash Bros or King’s Knight instead of meeting with Mars to study for their psychology class. And all the times he waited outside of their psychology class with horrible fake excuses for Prompto to go with him and not Mars, like having an emergency-mattress-falling-out-of-the-back-of-a-moving-truck fiasco that only Prompto could fix. (The last one might have actually happened to Noctis’s roommate and been a huge pain in the butt but the main point is still there.)  He hadn’t meant to keep Prompto from studying and furthering his education, but for sure did not want Prompto to end up kissing Mars during a potential study break. Maybe he had been selfish to do so. Maybe he had been a bad friend. 

How could he let his confusing emotions make him act so selfishly?

“So are you going to Niles that he can’t be selfish anymore?”

“Yeah, I guess. Not sure if he’ll listen though.” He would try. “But there’s also something else that he kinda needs advice with.”

“And what’s that?” Gladio reared himself to handle yet another advice question flawlessly like he thought he had just done. He was on his way to not being the brawn of the group but also the brains, at least the brains that can deal with “gay stuff.”

“Niles also kinda sorta has a long-term girlfriend… uh… Lucina and-” Noctis continued, trying his best to just get through his story. 

“WAIT” Gladio exclaimed, pulling himself straight up, in shock. “So you’re telling me, this Niles guy already has a girlfriend and is thinking of stepping out on her for someone else?” Gladio put both hands behind his head and leaned back, ready to spew some type of wisdom. “Then it’s super simple!” 

“How is it super simple?”

“Well, he has to either honor his commitment to his girlfriend and stay with her or break up with her. We all know I’m all about the ladies and not being tied down but cheating is one thing I’m not about.” 

“But what if Niles and Peri haven’t even done anything besides just hang out and maybe once kiss…”

“Hold up,” Gladio put his hand out dramatically, almost hitting Noctis in the face. “Sorry, Iris has been watching all these trashy reality TV shows and I think they’ve been rubbing off on me. Like she’s always watching them in the living room, which is the only room in our apartment that has a ceiling high enough for me to do my hand-standing push-ups.” Noctis rolled his eyes at the fact that he somehow forgot that Gladio always managed to mention the fact that he can do hand-standing push-ups which would automatically make him the coolest guy in the universe. News flash: he was in the coolest guy in the universe because one time “Anyway, you’re telling me that Niles has a girlfriend, Lucina, who he’s been in a long-term relationship with and he still kissed Peri?” 

“Well, when you put it that way…” Noctis looked down, ashamed. He had kissed Prompto knowing that he had a girlfriend that he loved. He did love her, even if it might not be the way he was supposed to. He did love her. He had to.

“What way? Like the way when Niles totally cheated on Lucina with Peri? Damn dude. Your friend kinda sucks. Being selfish AND a cheater. Where do you find these people?” 

“But it’s not that simple!” Noctis tried to defend Niles. Tried to defend himself. 

“How is it not simple, Noct? Niles had a girlfriend. And he kissed Peri and might have feelings for him or her, because you never answered that, and now he’s torn between the two.”

“I gue-“

“He needs to break up with his girlfriend, period. Or how Iris says it, Periodt.” Gladio threw out his right hand with his fingernails pointed down, like he was throwing down some mad gossip-wisdom at the coolest nail salon in Insomnia.

“But what if Peri doesn’t actually like him the way Niles might like Peri?”

“Doesn’t matter bro,” Gladio leaned back again, clearly satisfied with his advice. “Niles shouldn’t have kissed Peri in the first place but he did, so he has to at least tell Lucina about it and she can decide what to do.”

“Is it really that simple?” Noctis wasn’t sure it was. But maybe it was. Maybe it was just cheating even if he might be into guys. Maybe it just boiled down to kissing other people, regardless of gender, was just plain cheating on one of the only people that’s been there for him since the accident. 

“You need to tell your friend that he needs to get his head out of his ass and do something about it because his girlfriend needs to hear about it from him and not someone else. Now, that would be messy. It doesn’t take someone who’s been forced to watch way more Desperate Insomnians that he would like to admit to get that.”

“What if no one else knows?” Noctis, and he assumed Prompto had as well, had kept a very tight lid on the whole kiss debacle. How was he supposed to explain that to Luna? On top of kissing someone else, he hadn’t told her for months. Lying by omission is still lying, even if he didn’t always like to believe it. 

“Well, you know what they say.” 

“What, Gladio?”

“Two can keep a secret.” Gladio made a mischievous smirk. “If one of them is-”

“You’re dead, Gladiolus!” A voice bellowed from outside the tennis court.

“Oh, shi-”

“I TOLD you that tryouts were today and I needed you there to help me weed out the freshmeat!” 

Noctis turned to see a tallish woman with long gray hair enter the tennis court, two tennis balls tucked neatly into the lacrosse stick she held in her right hand. In her left hand were the other two tennis balls Gladio had knocked out of the court and she seemed ready to blast them right at Gladio’s head.

“Crap,” Gladio muttered from the side of his mouth towards Noctis. “I completely forgot.”

“Who IS that?” Noctis asked. This woman was something else. She walked with such confidence, like everyone needed to move FOR her, and, if Noctis happened to be in her way, he would have gladly moved aside. Not because he was scared, maybe a little intimidated, but mostly because he wanted to be her? Like if he was going to be born a woman he would want to be like his woman walking towards them with the ferocity of a thousand silver dragons, poised to take down a small empire, and he didn’t even know her name. Who was this woman who he would, at least for the next few seconds, name the Queen of Dragons?

“I’m Aranea Highwind, the new manager of Sports and Recreation here at ULI,” she replied to a Noctis, lowering her sunglasses. “And you are?”

“Aranea,” Gladio whispered from the side of his mouth in her direction. “Don’t be an idiot! It’s-“

“Oh my gods,” Aranea said, cringing, hard. “I’m sorry Your Highness.” She went for a bow to which Noctis stopped with an outstretched hand. The Queen of Dragons - Aranea - was actually about to bow for him! He had never felt so honored and embarrassed before. Well, at least more honored. There were many times he felt way more embarrassed like the time he was golfing with his father and he hit the ball wildly and it flew and flew until it hit a seagull right in the head. It died. And his father never took him golfing again, for both their and the environment's safety, a call that Noctis actually approved of. Of course, his father would never let him live down the fact that he actually managed to get a "birdie." Har. Har.

“That’s alright, Aranea,” Noctis replied, glad that this woman who carried herself with the poise of a legendary dragoon from ancient times wasn’t totally perfect. That would have pushed his impression of her over the line from mildly intimidating to complete terror. “I like when people don’t know who I am when they first see me. Keeps it less complicated.”

“I get that,” she replied, sighing in relief. “I just moved to Lucis so I’m a bit out of touch with all the politics.”

“Where are you from?”

“Niflheim, originally. Grew up right outside of Gralea.” She noticed that grimace that came upon Noctis face. “You got a problem with Niflheim?” She put her left hand on her hip, and Noctis could see her right hand grip her lacrosse stick just a little tighter. This could turn very bad, very quickly. 

“Uhhh.”

She laughed, dropping the tennis balls that were still in the stick’s net. “Because so do I.” She spun her lacrosse stick with an elegant spin and flourish and held it diagonally behind her back. “So I left, and haven’t looked back since.”

“Niflheim has done some… real shady stuff lately.” Gladio said as he stood up from the bench. 

“No need to hold back when you’re talking about Niflheim.” Aranea pointed her stick right at Gladio’s chest. “It didn’t always use to be like this.” She looked down, contemplating something. “Ever since ‘he’ showed.”

“He?” Noctis asked, putting his hand on the lacrosse stick and slightly lowering it. She held it with such ferocity, it could have easily doubled as a weapon like a lance. Noctis would not want to be on the receiving end of that. But wasn’t it Gladio’s job to protect him and not the other way around?

Aranea shook her head in disgust. “I don’t even want to pollute the air around here with his Gods-awful name. Just know he’s the literal worst human being, if he is even a human being, to walk this planet.” Aranea replied, pulling her stick back. “Anyway, I didn’t come here to rehash why I left Niflheim and my entire family and my disdain for that raw kale salad with sardine eating swine of a man.. I came to knock some sense into Gladio.” She tapped his head with the stick. “Because you weren’t at lacrosse tryouts, you get to come back with me and reorganize ALL the locker assignments AND catalog all the lacrosse sticks and pads AND-”

“Alright, alright,” Gladio said, rubbing the spot on his head where he was unceremoniously smacked. “You really know how to work a stick.” He gave a smirk.

“I’m not touching that.” She raised her eyebrows, incredulous at the blatant sexual innuendo that spewed out of Gladio’s mouth. Clearly, she hadn’t known him very long because at least sixty-nine percent of the time, Gladio is able to sprinkle some type of sexual remark or joke into his vocabulary.

“Well, it was really nice meeting you, Aranea,” Noctis said, trying his hardest not to laugh. Gladio was in for a ride with this one. And knowing him, he would be chasing her for a long while.

“Likewise. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing quite a bit of each other this year.” She looked at the tennis racket that was lying on the bench. “Maybe I can give you a run for your money, which I’m assuming you have a lot of, with this tennis thing. From what I saw just now, you still have a lot to work on if you really want it.”

“Want what? Tennis?” 

Aranea started walking away and turned her head back. “If you don’t know yet, you’re just not looking hard enough.” She put her hand up for an aloof goodbye. “See you around, Your Highness.”

“What was that supposed to mean?” Noctis turned to Gladio who was almost done packing up his things. 

“Women,” Gladio remarked, smirking towards Aranea’s figure fading into the distance.

“Can’t live with them, can’t live without them?”

“But can Niles?” Gladio nudged Noctis with her elbow. “You HAVE to tell me if Peri is a guy or a girl. Like I know it doesn’t matter THAT much, but-”

“You want this too much,” Noctis laughed as they both walked out of the tennis court, rackets in hand.

“Need I remind you that you’re the one who came to me for advice.”

“Fine, I’ll tell you, even though it doesn’t actually matter.”

“Peri is a-” A trumpet fanfare roared from Noctis’s pocket. He picked up the phone, not finishing his previous sentence. “Prompto?”

“Are you ser-” Noctis held out his finger to quiet Gladio. 

“Yeah, I can be there right now. See ya.” Noctis hung up the phone and turned to Gladio, smiling like an idiot. “Gotta run.”

“Who’s ‘Prompto’?”

“See ya!” Noctis took off away from the court towards Prompto’s dorm. He hadn’t even been listening carefully to what Prompto wanted. He was just happy that he didn’t need to disclose whether or not Peri was a guy or a girl. Partly because he didn’t want to give that self-righteous Gladio the satisfaction. But mostly, because he didn’t want to admit, out loud, that he might somehow, maybe be falling for a guy. 

The moment he did, he knew he would never be able to come back.

  
  



	11. How the Four Became Bros, Soon to be on the Road

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Sorry for going AWOL again! But I'm back and hopefully, the next chapter will come a bit sooner! TTYL!

 

Noctis waited outside of the dining hall for what seemed like hours, hugging himself to keep warm against the chill October night air. The rainy season was just around the corner, a little later than usual this year, but Noctis knew that once the, on average, one-month rainy season, snow and winter would begin: His favorite season. He checked his watch again, noting how only one minute had passed since the last time he had checked it. The irony of the fact that he had always been the late one in the past was not lost on him. Was this how Ignis felt every time he waited for Noctis to be ready to leave his apartment almost every day of his high school career? He shivered against the wind, debating on going inside already when bright headlights came into view and almost blinded him. He put his hand up to shield his eyes and saw the two of them in the car, laughing almost like they didn’t realize they were fifteen minutes late.

Ignis turned off the ignition and got out of the car. Gladio rolled his shoulders before opening his door. Noctis was furious that they weren’t running or at least showing any sign of remorse about being late to something so important.

“You’re late,” Noctis grumbled at Ignis who had just walked up to him. 

“What do you mean?” Ignis asked in his posh accent. “Your text message left most details extremely ambiguous.” 

“Yeah. Noctis!” Gladio bellowed from the car’s open door. “I’ll be out in a sec! Gotta get this... zipper... fixed!” Noctis could see that Gladio was struggling with a zipper of some sort near his crotch. Why it might have been down, he didn’t want to know. Oh Gods, was that why they were late?

“Before your mind finds its way to the gutter like it always seems to do,” Ignis said, pushing his glasses up, making his eyes invisible for a second due to the shine from the nearest light post. “Gladio’s zipper got caught in the seatbelt and not for any other, inappropriate reason. My car, however energy and fuel-efficient it may be, wasn’t exactly made for someone of Gladio’s stature.” 

Which was true. Ignis, although given basically any choice of car from King Regis for his help with Noctis, had picked a small, black four-door sedan that ran efficiently rather than looked cool or could haul large items, or large people like Gladio. Gladio was not pleased with Ignis’s choice, especially because Ignis could have easily gone with a larger, more spacious car like an SUV or at least a crossover so he wouldn’t have scrunch up in basically a fetal position to fit in.

“That is totally not what I meant.” It was totally what he meant. Maybe he had been thinking too much about that kind of stuff ever since he and Prompto had accidentally stumbled on an explicit male on male website the other night while searching the internet for images for Man’s Creation for a COS 1 assignment. Now that was awkward. Noctis had slid a little further from Prompto, not because he didn’t want to be next to a gay guy, but because of how the image seemed to make him feel when he put Prompto’s face on the nameless men. 

“Anyway, you failed to let us know where on campus you wanted to meet so I had to look up your location like I used to have to do when you were in high school.”

“Kinda creepy, not going to lie.” Noctis shuffled his feet, wanting Gladio to hurry up. How hard was it really to get a zipper unstuck from a seatbelt? 

“And you also told us to be here at 6:30.” Ignis ignored Noctis’s comment and looked down at his watch. “And according to my calculations and this watch, it is only 6:25.” Ignis showed Noctis his watch, much to Noctis’s chagrin. 

“Wait, then why does mine say 6:45?” Noctis showed Ignis his own King’s Knight watch which very clearly read 6:45. 

“Oh, that’s because Ol’ Iggy here,” Gladio clapped Ignis’s back and he didn’t even flinch. For being a man nowhere near Gladio’s muscular stature, Ignis was decently strong. He had to be if he was also to keep Noctis safe. Even if that safety usually came in the form of trying to make Noctis eat more healthy foods and remembering which train would get him from point A to point B and not C, D or Z. “Set your watch twenty minutes fast after you were so hilariously late to your first class of college ever!” Gladio laughed his loud roar-like laugh. 

“Gladio!” Ignis slapped his arm playfully. “Now Noctis knows and we’ll have to come up with another way to wake him up on time.”

“Wait a minute…” Noctis thought about that for a second. That’s why he was always so early for his classes. And by early, he was really only on time which was still extremely early as per his record. 

“What I don’t understand,” Gladio said in between laughs. “Is how you didn’t notice for almost two whole months! Like, don’t you check the clock on your phone or something?”

“I mean…” Noctis didn’t regularly check the time on his phone; he was much more preoccupied with looking for potential messages from Prompto to hang out or funny memes to share with Prompto or literally anything besides time that would relate to Prompto in any way. Every once in awhile he would text Luna and ask her if she wanted to get a bite to eat or if she was free to talk about serious things, but that was very far and few between. They just weren’t able to connect on the same level that he and Prompto were able to which he attributed to her being a PhD student and Prompto being in the same class as him. Although he was well aware that was most probably not the case.

“You’re hopeless,” Gladio said, this time slapping Noctis on the back. Even after all these years, he still wasn’t completely used to Gladio’s strength completely and somewhat lurched forward.

“Especially when it comes to making plans,” Ignis said as he pulled out his phone. He swiped through it, past his ever-growing list of new recipes, most of them trying to find new ways to get Noctis to inadvertently eat his vegetables, and past applications and pleas for letters of recommendation to medical schools. He got to the group message Noctis had sent at midnight the night before. It said:

**6:30, on campus, both of you, important thx**

“I truly cannot begin to understand what you were expecting us to gather from this,” Ignis said as he put his phone back into his gray flannel. His most current crush, Dino, had recently introduced Ignis to the newest fad amongst his readers at Meteor Publishing, “mountain people.” Which consisted almost solely of flannel. Everywhere. Like everywhere possible.  “But we made it here.”

“And what were you doing up so late last night anyway, Noctis?” Gladio asked, putting on the best big brother who only cares for his little brother’s wellbeing voice. 

“Well…”   
  


* * *

“So…,” Prompto asked last night, laying on Noctis’s bed and twirling his soccer ball in his hand. 

He tried and tried again to get it to spin on his finger but gave up after it hit Noctis’s head for the third time, who was sitting on his dorm room’s floor working on an assignment for his Intro to Biology class with Professor Yeagre. She had made it extremely clear she was not pleased that she was teaching freshmen about the mitochondria being more than just the powerhouses of the cell instead of doing actual research that could cure cancer or produce rainbow-colored frogs. Somehow, she was able to bring up her fever dream of studying everything under the Eosian sun that has to do with frogs. Noctis forgot to take that into consideration when picking courses for the semester.

“So… what?” Noctis asked, finishing his last problem on the assignment. He now knew way more than he ever thought he would about the different structures that make up proteins and how cholesterol doesn’t just give people high blood pressure and taste really good in greasy chicken tenders. (It acts in cell membranes to prevent them from becoming too stiff or too fluid which can lead to cell death, who knew?)

“So…. when am I going to meet these elusive Ignis and Gladiolus?” Prompto turned over and tucked his soccer ball under his chin. 

He had joined the ULI intramural soccer team and carried around that soccer ball with his camera like his children. Noctis was pretty, and secretly, disappointed that Prompto hadn’t made the lacrosse team or chosen to play tennis with him in his two-person tennis team. He probably could have tried to convince Gladio to let him on the team but that wouldn’t have been fair to anyone involved, especially Aranea who Noctis did not want, in no way, ever want to disrespect. And he really didn’t want to try to get in the way of his best friend’s college experience, even if it meant sitting back quietly while he and that stupid Mars talked about psychology while Noctis tried to keep up. He just got so hopelessly lost whenever Freud and Pavlov and, Id’s?, were brought up on top of sorta hating Mars’s guts. He was stealing his best friend’s friendship and nothing else, obviously.

“Oh, them…” Noctis replied, placing his pen down and looking back at Prompto. 

He had spent time with Ignis and Gladio many times between Prompto and his getaway car adventure to that cliff and then, but somehow, Prompto hadn’t really been brought up, except when he used a fake name. Why hadn’t he actually brought up his newest best friend that he almost died with and maybe had weird feelings for? On top of the fact that he had apparently brought them up enough for Prompto to remember their names and want to meet them. And why would he not want to Prompto to meet his other two best friends that he had known for almost all of his life? Couldn’t the four of them be an iconic quartet that video game developers would hate to love and love to hate because they didn’t think of it first?

“Yeah, ‘them,’” Prompto made air quotes and laughed. “You talk about them all the time and from what I remember, Gladiolus or, Gladio as you seem to call him, still goes here and Ignis just graduated? I wanna meet them!”

“Yeah…” Noctis muttered. Prompto had already met Luna who, objectively, was probably the most dangerous person for him to meet given their history. So meeting Gladio and Ignis should be essentially painless. He had to introduce them. 

“So… can I meet them?”

“Well...” Noctis muttered, looking at the time. 

It was almost midnight. Prompto had come over to do homework with him hours before but had finished his one page of introductory calculus problems almost thirty minutes after he had gotten there. After that, he mainly played on his phone, practiced his aforementioned soccer ball twirling, and annoyed Noctis with random questions about random things like if he had ever ridden a Chocobo (“Yes, I used to have two, Boko and Tonka, and would ride them all day when I was younger.”) or if he had ever blacked out (“No, but I did once go to an Ihop, Insomnian House of Pancakes, alone after a long night of partying, drunk off my mind, instead of going to the bar across the street with Gladio because I really wanted mozzarella sticks, chicken strips, and onion rings.) 

But, now it was late and Noctis needed to come up with an excuse as to why Prompto would never meet Ignis and Gladio. He also had to work on the fact that he was sweating inside due to the fact that Prompto was on his bed and his bed would probably smell like him for a while. And maybe he wouldn’t get any sleep that night. He really had to change that line of thinking. But one thing was sure: Prompto could not, under any circumstances, meet Ignis of Gladio now, or any time soon. 

“And… sent.” Prompto said, conspiratorially holding Noctis’s phone. “Here you go.” He handed the phone back to Noctis, their hands touching for a fraction of a second. Both too long and too short.

“What did you-” Noctis looked at the most recent text that was addressed to both Gladio and Ignis that said, in the briefest of words, to be on campus for something important tomorrow. “Thx?” Any anger was immediately replaced with curiosity aimed at why Prompto would use that childish abbreviation.

“You don’t text like that?”

“Like what? A thirteen-year-old fan-girl?”

“No, like someone who clearly wants his most attractive best friend to meet his other two childhood best friends so we can be like best friends together.”

“I mean…” 

How was he supposed to fix this? You can’t unsend a text message. He could theoretically try to intercept both of their phones, delete the text message, change his own phone password that he had given to Prompto offhandedly one day when he needed Prompto to check the map to see how long it would take to get to the nearest Astralbucks before class, and hope that Prompto would never ask to meet Gladio or Ignis ever again. Or he could run away from Insomnia, become a hermit like those that live in that one mountain freeway overpass and survive on wild game and fish from the Vesperpool for sustenance and never see his family or loved ones again. Or, and probably way more realistically, he could have them all meet and hope to the Astrals above that it isn’t awkward and might be perfect?

“Alright, well let’s all meet at the Crow’s Nest Diner in South Campus for dinner and then I’ll get to meet Gladio and Ignis and we can all be like a party of four like in King's Knight!” Prompto started.

“I think you might be getting ahead of yourself.”

“Maybe so, Friend A,” Prompto exclaimed, jumping up from the bed and onto the floor, barely missing Noctis’s legs. “But I have only the highest hopes for this occasion of grand import.”

“You’re literally one of the most dramatic people I’ve ever met,” Noctis said, getting up from his position on the ground and dusting himself off. Libertus may have gotten better at cleaning up after himself, but the room was far from pristine. Which was expected given the fact that they were both male college students with better things to do than vacuum up minuscule crumbs of potato chips and uncooked ramen noodles. 

“And you wouldn’t want it any other way.” Prompto dropped his soccer ball on top of Noctis which he caught right away. “I’ll see you tomorrow! And my two soon to be best friends!” Prompto picked up his ball and left the room, Noctis watching him walk away the entire time. 

“Tomorrow is going to be interesting.”   
  


* * *

“Wait, so Noctis fell out of the fishing boat?! When he messes up he really doesn’t half-ass it, doesn’t he?!” Gladio busted up laughing, almost knocking over his and Ignis’s drinks with his excitement.

“That wasn’t even very funny,” Noctis grumbled, taking a bite into his Kenny’s Salmon, and hoping that the night would end as fast as it had started.

When Noctis had led Ignis and Gladio into The Crow’s Nest Diner that the university had just built the year before in preparation for Noctis’s imminent enrollment, Prompto was already at a booth, talking to a waiter about his psychology class. Everyone at the school was either in PSYC 1 or had taken it recently enough that they remembered how peculiar Professor Auburnbrie was. Apparently, she had spent a whole fifteen minutes of her fifty-minute long lecture going on about witchcraft and how her sister was actually a bonafide witch. How she still worked at the university was lost on the students that actually wanted to learn about Egos and their superhero counterpart, Superegos. (At least that’s what Noctis thought they were.) 

Prompto had jumped up when he heard the entrance doorbell ring and his face lit up like a sparkler falling into a field of dry grass that made Noctis’s stomach churn. Butterflies of all sizes and colors began to metamorphosis in him when he saw how excited Prompto was. Prompto ran up to the three of them and exuberantly shook Ignis and Gladio’s hands with such fervor it surprised both of them. He clearly wasn’t going to hold anything back tonight; they were either going to love or hate him.

“But in my defense, Prompto was the one who was rocking the boat for no reason!”

“Oh contraire, my dear Noct, you know I was rocking the boat to get the perfect ripple shot of the water. And I’m not liable for anything that happened after that.”

“Wait... Noct?!” Ignis asked incredulously. “Is that a nickname I hear?”

“Noctis!” Gladio bellowed. “You never let us give you a nickname! Even when I had the best one for you!” 

“Noctina was and never will be a good nickname.”

“Oh my Gods, that’s incredible! I cannot believe I didn’t come up with that myself!” Prompto took a large bite of his Kenny’s Signature Hamburger and got a splash of Kenny’s Sauce on the side of his chin. Noctis instinctively wiped it off with the side of his napkin and smiled at Prompto, his eyes crinkling around the edges, a way they only did when he was with Prompto.

Ignis and Gladio looked at each other, questioning what had just happened. Like they had accidentally stumbled into a situation where they were not supposed to be.

“Anyway,” Prompto cleared his throat and took a sip of his lemonade. When the waiter had asked what they wanted to drink, Prompto had made sure to say “Life hasn’t given me enough lemons recently so I would like a lemonade.” Gladio and Ignis both pity laughed and Noctis rolled his eyes. 

“So, what do you two do?” Prompto turned to both of them and they looked at each other, debating who to go first and maybe suffer the onslaught of someone who had made such a horrific lemon joke.

“Well, I recently graduated from ULI as a Physiology and Neuroscience major with a minor in Culinary Arts.”

“Wow, those are like so different! What made you want to do that?” Prompto rested his chin on his hands, clearly ready to take in anything and everything the bespectacled Ignis was going to say.

“The Physiology and Neuroscience major was for medical school. I actually recently returned from a summer traveling to different medical schools for interviews. I just had my last one last week and I think it went fairly well.” Ignis turned to Noctis who gave him a bro high-five, knuckle punch and all. Prompto looked like a proud father who had just seen his sweet summer child spread his wings for the first time. “And the Culinary Arts minor was partly interest and partly so I could keep up with Noctis’s incredible appetite AND pickiness.”

“Okay, is it just me or does Noctis NEVER eat any vegetables, like ever?” Prompto asked, laughing.

“If I had a gil dollar for every time I’ve seen Noctis eat a vegetable and not spit it into his napkin or give it to Umbra, I wouldn’t have enough to buy a cup of water from Astralbucks!” Gladio laughed.  
“Doesn’t Astralbucks give out water for free?” Prompto asked.

“Exactly!” Gladio laughed again, slapping the table. Noctis had to hold his own glass of water from slipping over.

“Are we done ganging up on me yet?” Noctis asked, trying to look annoyed but really feeling amused and grateful. This was going way better than he could have hoped.

“I don’t think we’ll ever be done, right?” Prompto replied, turning to Ignis and Gladio. They both nodded and laughed. Prompto stuck on his knuckles, and after a second of inner debating, the two of them knuckle-fived him back. Win.

“Alright, good to know.” Noctis crossed his arms and put on a sour face. Inside though he was laughing too. His best friends all being friends with each other. This was going better than he could have ever asked for.

“So what kind of doctor do you want to be?” Prompto asked Ignis.

“Well my friend, Dino-”

“Who he wants to be way more than friends with, if you catch my drift,” Gladio interjected before taking a big swig from his Diet Coke.

“Gladio,” Ignis turned to Gladio, tilted his head with his eyes wide open, and smiled a closed smile that screamed, in no uncertain terms, to shut up. “Why would you-”

“Oh shoot, is he cute?” Prompto asked, nonchalantly. Whether he was trying to diffuse whatever might explode out of Ignis’s soon-to-burst emotional volcano or whether he was genuinely unaware of how close to an eruption the table was, Noctis would never know. “Because I know there isn’t a shortage of cute guys at this school.”

“Oh, shoot are you gay?” Gladio asked, turning away from Ignis who was still silently fuming which Noctis could tell from the slight tinge of anger in his eyes. 

“Yep, been out since I was like fourteen and I haven’t looked back since.”

“That is quite nice,” Ignis replied, his closed mouth smile reverting from hostile killer to amused dinner companion. “I’ve been out since I was sixteen, although a lot of people told me they had known since I was as young as three. Which isn’t the most reassuring thing to hear when you were trying to hide that part of yourself for so long.”

“Oh my Gods, right?! Like telling someone they knew you were gay the entire time is so not helpful!”

“It’s comforting to have some solidarity with fellow gays.” Ignis laughed to himself. “Because we know that Gladio and Noctis won’t be able to offer much in that respect.”

Noctis gulped to himself. That wasn’t completely true; his track record spoke for itself. And Prompto knew that.

“Glad to have another gay friend for sure,” Prompto replied happily before tapping Noctis’s shoe with his. A secret message telling him to relax; his secret, their secret, wasn’t his to tell. “But what did this Dino say?”

“Haha, yes of course,” Ignis pushed his glasses back up, once again hiding his eyes with the shiny glare from the diner light. “He hinted that I look into plastic surgery because it’s more lucrative. Not like it would affect him in any way because he doesn’t exactly talk to me outside of our shifts at the community clinic. But I want to do something more meaningful, not to say that plastic surgery isn’t meaningful, but something like ophthalmology.” He adjusted his glasses, showcasing why he might want to go down that track. 

“That sounds so cool!” Prompto replied. “I could never be a doctor but I have mad respect for those who can.”

“Thanks, Prompto. And what do you do? Like major and whatnot.”

“Well, I’m a Photography major in the Visual Arts Department.” He patted his camera that was placed on the table, far enough away from any food or drink but not far enough away for, in the event that something picture-worthy happened, he could reach it in a matter of milliseconds. Like, for instance, when Noctis began to choke on his salmon and needed Gladio to give him the Heimlich. Now that was a shot worth taking. “I’m also on the soccer team, which is awesome because of the cute guys and I get to own them all on the field. And then also, I have an interview with Dr. Dorden in a couple of days for an internship at Meteor Publishing.”

“Wait, you didn’t tell me that!” Noctis exclaimed, turning to face Prompto, painfully aware of the hole in his throat where the piece of salmon used to be.

“Huh, I could have sworn I told you about it. Maybe I told Mars.” Prompto shrugged. Noctis tried his hardest to not boil over in anger. How could his best friend not tell him something as major as this but tell someone he had just met who wasn’t even that cool? Mars wasn’t a prince. He couldn’t use magic. He wasn’t-

“Wait, didn’t you try out for lacrosse?” Gladio asked after he had calmed down from basically saving Noctis’s life. At least he was actually doing his job as his bodyguard.

“Yeah… I did.” Prompto said, a little sad. “I recognized you when you walked in. No hard feelings though. Soccer is more my speed anyway.”

“Good to hear, you were pretty good out there anyway.”  
“I get it, bro.” Prompto gave a wry smile. “Y’all just couldn’t handle someone as hot as me. I totally understand.”

“Digging the confidence, bro,” Gladio said, putting his fist out for a bump.

“Thanks, bro.” Prompto fist bumped him back. “So, what do you do Gladio?”

“Oh, me?” Gladio asked, sitting back like he had just been crowned the new king of Insomnia. “Let’s see….” He put out his hands and started counting down on his beefy fingers. “I lift weights, do standing push-ups, punch-”

Noctis threw a french fry at Gladio which he caught inside his mouth. “That was supposed to hit your face.”

“Well it hit my tongue and now I have an extra french fry and you have one less so I win.”

“Not anymore,” Noctis reached over and stole a french fry from Gladio’s plate. He bit into it and smiled. “Prompto did not want to hear about your work-out regimen. No one does.”

“Maybe if you worked out more you wouldn’t be embarrassed about showing off your scrawny body.” Gladio took a french fry from Noctis’s plate. 

“Hey, I got muscle!” Noctis replied, taking a fry from Gladio’s plate in retaliation. “You just… can’t see it…”

“If you say so.” Gladio leaned back. “But anyway, Prompto,” Gladio turned back to Prompto. “This is my last year after ULI. I’ve been studying Kinesiology and will probably try to be like a personal trainer or something. On top of being Noctis’s 24/7 bodyguard and fodder for his muscular wet dreams.” He laughed until Noctis kicked him with more force than a raging Behemoth under the table.

Prompto and Ignis both laughed as well. Noctis tried his hardest not to positively reinforce such crude humor that was totally not true. He had never thought about Gladio or Ignis that way so maybe he wasn’t actually gay. He had only ever thought about Prompto like that and only sometimes, and never for too long. Maybe his feelings were finally on the downhill slope to being gone. That would be perfection.

“Not true, but whatever.” Noctis retorted. “I’d sooner have wet dreams about a Killer Wasp than you.”

“Oh, I bet that… stings!” Prompto laughed so loud that the cook behind the counter looked up.

“That was bad and you should feel bad,” Gladio said. Everyone at the table laughed.

“Oh, wait!” Prompto dropped his fork on to the table, noodle and all. “Did Noctis ever tell you about the Killer Wasps?!”

“The killer what’s?!” Ignis asked, fear beginning to register on his face. 

“Don’t worry, Iggy. No Noctis’s were hurt the making of this story” Prompto replied. “Can I call you ‘Iggy’?”

“Yes, of course. We’re all friends here.”

Noctis felt Prompto squeeze his hand under the table. They were both so excited about how this night had gone. Prompto had made two new amazing friends and Noctis had successfully begun to merge his two worlds together. The world in which he grew up and the world where he started to understand what he really wanted in life. Even if he was not being completely truthful. 

“But what about these Killer Wasps?!?!”

“Well, one day over the summer…”   
  


* * *

“Prompto seems like a great guy,” Ignis told Noctis as they walked back to Ignis’s car. Prompto had gone back to his own dorm to get some much-needed sleep for his calculus quiz the next day. He didn’t want their hangout to end, even going so far as to ask if they all wanted to get frozen yogurt to “settle their stomachs” before Noctis had so nicely reminded him of the aforementioned quiz. Noctis could already tell that he was going to get an earful about how great Prompto thought Ignis and Gladio were in the next couple days. He wasn’t dreading it though like he might have in the past. He couldn’t wait.

“Yeah?” Noctis asked, screaming inside. They really liked him! 

“Cute too,” Gladio added, playfully shoving Noctis’s shoulder. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Noctis did not like what Gladio was insinuated. 

“All I’m saying is that guy is going to be snatched up real quick so don’t be surprised when he gets a boyfriend and doesn’t spend as much time with you as he is now.”

“Wow, that surprisingly insightful,” Ignis added. Gladio punched Ignis’s shoulder. 

“Hey, I’ve got some smart things to say once in a while! Like just the other day, Noctis came to ME for advice. Not you Iggy.” 

“Is that so?” Ignis turned to Noctis inquisitively. “And what about?”

“Anyway,” Noctis ignored Iggy and turned to face Gladio head-on. “What makes you say that?”

“Well, he did mention that ‘Mars’ person during dinner,” Ignis said, taking the words out of Gladio’s mouth. They had done stuff like for as long as Noctis could remember. They became close over the years of bonding over how particular Noctis was about a lot of things and just how close they worked, day in and day out, as Noctis’s loyal retainers. On top of being best friends of course. 

“And you got real quiet and kinda angry looking,” Gladio added.

“Wait isn’t he that new Crownsguard guy? The one from Catarnica?” Ignis asked.

“Yeah…” Noctis looked down. Even Ignis knew this guy, which made sense given that he was technically in the Crownsguard himself. How he managed to be in the Crownsguard, go to school, keep almost straight A’s (who actually cares about random general education classes that bear no actual meaning or significance with any actual career?), have crushes on at least one guy per school year, and basically be Noctis’s butler and best friend at the same time has always eluded Noctis. And almost anyone that knew him. It wasn’t easy living in Ignis’s shadow; it would never be.

“See, there it is!” Gladio interjected. “Just be careful, bro. This is like your first friend, outside of us that is.” Gladio wrapped him and Ignis into a tight bear hug.

“You’re. Crushing. Me.” Noctis squealed out.

“We only want what’s best for you,” Ignis said, smoothing out his flannel. Noctis couldn’t wait until this mountain person fad ended and was replaced with something less, flannel.

“I’ll be fine, don’t worry. We’re just friends.”

“Do ‘just friends’ clean the sauce off of their ‘just friends’ mouth at dinner?” Gladio said, raising his eyebrows inquisitively. “Because that was mad intimate.”

“We’re… close?” He hadn’t realized how weird that must have looked to someone that wasn’t him. Friends didn’t clean each other’s faces, even if there was a glob of Kenny’s sauce on the side of their beautifully kissable mouths. He didn’t even clean Luna’s face. Had he used a napkin? That might have been more acceptable than with like his finger or something and then maybe placing that same finger into his mouth, hoping that the taste of Kenny’s sauce might have combined with the taste of Prompto’s mouth. This was not the way to get over Prompto nor hide any feelings he might have for him. And, frankly, it was “mad weird,” like what Gladio totally would have called it.  
“Just be careful, Noct.” Ignis put his hand on Noctis’s shoulder, knocking him right out of his inner monologue and back onto the dark campus, no Prompto in sight. “Gladio and I have known you your entire life and we just don’t want you to get hurt.” He gave Noctis a weak smile. “Like we said, Prompto seems like a great guy and you two have a great friendship.”

“Not as great as ours though, obviously,” Gladio added in, coming up to stand right next to Ignis. “And maybe one day we’ll talk a cross country road trip!”

“Sounds like a plan,” Noctis replied. Even with everything that had just transpired, he only had hope for their friendship.

“Well, we’re going to call it a night. See you later, Noctis.” Ignis said as he walked to his car. 

“I’ll catch up with you in a sec, Iggy! I’ve got to talk to Noctis about something,” Gladio called out, hanging back after Ignis walked down the path to the parking lot.

“What did you want to talk about, Gladio?” Noctis asked. What could Gladio possibly have to say after basically giving him the fourth-degree about Prompto?

“Oh, nothing much, Noct,” Gladio squinted his eyes and bored right through Noctis’s soul. “Or should I say... Niles.”


	12. How a Campus is Toured

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Sorry for the delay... work has been crazy busy and video games... BUT HERE IT IS. (I also loved writing his chapter because it brought me way back to my college days and wow am I tearing up? No, you're tearing up. And ten points to whomever can guess what my major in college was based on thi one chapter lol.) Talk to y'all soon!

Chapter 12: How a Campus Tour Should be Done

 

Noctis tapped his pen incessantly on his paper. He had finished his Intro to Cell Biology final thirty minutes after the tests were handed out, well before anyone else in the packed lecture hall. He had never finished an exam that early before but basically the entire semester he had been on top of all his schoolwork, way more than he ever was in high school, to prove to himself and everyone else that he deserved to be at this university, the top-ranked university in all Lucis, maybe even all of Eos. Even if he and almost everyone knew that he totally got in because he was the prince. He wasn’t going to let another person’s jealous comment about how he was only there because there were numerous buildings named after his ancestors have any truth to them. But really, and Noctis would never say it out loud, his real reason for throwing himself into his studies the past couple of weeks was because he was trying his hardest to not think about one young blond man who had slowly yet surely had become the main subject of all of his thoughts. 

It was pretty hard to focus on how when Prompto smiled he wanted nothing more than frame it in his mind’s eye forever when he was instead reciting all the steps of cellular respiration: Glycolysis then the Citric Acid Cycle followed by the way Prompto’s laugh sounded better than the Insomnian Royal Symphony and ending with Oxidative Phosphorylation. Noctis shook his head at his paper when remembering that he once wrote that on a study guide. That was why he tried so desperately to push that out of his mind. The mitochondria might have been the powerhouse of the cell, but it sure didn’t have room for Prompto and these horrible feelings Noctis needed to erase. 

He had done extremely well on his Intro to Economics final (thankfully, he remembered some of the main reasons Insomnia finally switched their currency from yen to gil like the rest of Eos) and his Intro to Global Health and Policy final, even if they were both very basic, lower-division classes that didn’t get into details that Noctis would need to know when he would eventually rule the largest nation in Eos one day. Getting A’s would always feel good, especially given that he had almost never felt that success before. Maybe he would even personally tell his father about his grades instead of his father having to find out about his C’s from “worried” teachers who actually just wanted a reason to kiss up to “King Regis”. And if he was able to push a little dirty blond-haired devil out of his mind while he was at it too, that would feel even better.

Noctis looked around to see the rest of the lecture hall still frantically scribbling on their Biology tests about DNA Polymerases and Punnett Squares. He had come to lecture almost every day this past quarter and chuckled at the fact that he hadn’t seen almost a third of the students who were taking the test before today. And about the fact that he totally would have been one of those slackers, not six months before if he hadn’t met that blond boy. When had he become such a good student? Ignis and his father would be so proud. It not for the reason, but for the result at least.

He shuffled his papers around once, twice, three times. He traced his answers with his pen once, twice, three times again. He really did not want to be the first person to turn in his exam because no one actually wants to be the first person to turn in an exam. What if people looked at him and were envious of how quickly he had finished it? And what if he finished it so quickly because he was so wrong about everything? Would everyone think he was an idiot for not taking longer to answer everything? Would they think he was a lot smarter than everyone else and hate him for it? Would he spontaneously combust in a conflagration that rivaled even Ifrit’s Hellfire the moment he stood from his seat?

So, Noctis continued to tap, making each tap a little quieter and more spread out after the girl next to him shushed him, clearly stressed. Maybe she forgot what the final electron acceptor in the electron transport chain is. (Oxygen, which Noctis did remember because he always thought that if people didn’t have oxygen, then the mitochondria would get so mad that they would explode and then what would be the powerhouse of the cell?! In a couple of years, or even in a couple of months, he would forget almost everything that he learned in the class except that one all-encompassing fact: The powerchondria is the mitohouse of the cell.)

After tracing over his answer about X-linked chromosomes in fruit flies for the fourth time in a row, he looked up to see a guy in the front row get up to turn in his test. That was Noctis’s cue to finally get up too. He fumbled to gather his backpack and nudge his way out of the aisle. He then silently told himself to not sit in the middle of a row for a test, especially not a 400+ lecture hall final exam, ever again. Accidentally kicking over someone’s coffee that was placed on the floor was lesson enough. In Noctis’s defense, she should have finished it or not have put it in the direct path of anyone who finished their exam early. How difficult could it have been to put it under her chair? Or chug it like a shot of cold tequila that she would clearly do after this final?

He walked down the aisle, taking note of all the anxious faces and distressed tics people had while taking their tests. People were pulling their hair, biting on their fingernails. And he was so relieved he was about to out of his last final. At least for the semester. He got up to the front of the lecture hall and saw who the student was:

Mars. 

How hadn’t he realized that Mars was in this class too? It made sense though. Whenever he was forced to spend time with Mars and Prompto, the two of them mostly talked about their shared classes or interests, not classes that Noctis might share with Mars. Not that he really cared. Noctis quickly shuffled by Mars, hoping the taller, more muscular boy wouldn’t notice him or meet his eyes. 

“Excuse me,” Mars whispered out as he moved past Noctis, rubbing his shoulder on Noctis’s, making sure not to meet eyes.

He didn’t even look Noctis in the eyes which irked him. Even though he had secretly wished Mars wouldn’t, the fact that he basically straight up ignored an actual prince was just so rude. Especially because they actually knew each other. He should have paid the Crown Prince of Insomnia some respect. If Noctis wanted to, he could get Mars fired with a single text. Maybe he would. Maybe Insomnia would be better off with one less person stupidly named after a planet that existed in another solar system...

Noctis placed his test on the front table, said a quick goodbye to Prof. Yeagre and the TA and basically ran out of the classroom.

He was finally done with his first semester of college!

He stepped into the daylight and let it go.    
  


* * *

  
“Noctis!” Noctis turned around after picking up his skateboard that he left in a communal locker in the South Campus quad. He hadn’t brought it to his final; he didn’t want a repeat of his very first day. Noctis may have made quite a few mistakes in his life, especially in his father’s view, but he was usually very conscientious to not make the same one twice. Especially when it resulted in so much awkwardness. He did not want his royal name to be, “Noctis the Awkward,” after he was long gone for his ancestors to make fun of on the regular. That would be just plain… awkward.

“Iris?” 

A teenage girl in a black romper practically bounced up to him and wrapped him in a huge bear hug. For such a small person, she was still surprisingly strong. Maybe it ran in the Amicitia family. 

“I’m so glad I ran into you!”

“What are you doing on campus?” Wasn’t she supposed to be in high school? Noctis had been pretty out of touch with high school even though he had only been out for about a year, his gap year included. For all he knew, they had switched to the year-round education plan that he had overheard in a Department of Education board meeting that his father forced him to attend before he left for Insomnia. Was he paying attention? Of course, not. Should he have been? Clearly. 

“I came looking for Gladio. My dad wanted to talk to him about adding extra security for the winter formal. But you know our dads, they can’t be bothered to do anything themselves if it means leaving the citadel.” She exaggeratedly looked to her left and right for her older brother, who would be difficult to miss with his towering stature and the way people seemed to instinctively cower and stiffen up whenever he walked into a room. “But I can’t seem to find him anywhere on this humongous,” she spun around with her arms outstretched. “Campus! And I thought Insomnia itself was huge! This place is like its own city within a city!”

“Yeah, it really is.” Iris had always been a lot when they were growing up, but Noctis’ time with Prompto this past semester and summer had helped him get over his aversion to overly excited people. Not that he didn’t not like Iris. Sometimes she was the one he could relate to most out all of the people he knew in his younger years. Ever since he took the blame for her getting lost in the cold and rain when they were younger, they had a special connection that he didn’t even have with Ignis or Gladio. “And you want me to give you a tour, don’t you?”

“Ahhh, Noctis,” Iris smiled and rested her cheeks on her knuckles. “You’re so thoughtful! Come on!” Iris grabbed Noctis’s hands.

“I think I’m supposed to lead you?” Noctis asked while being torn away from the quad. If he was more clumsy like Prompto, he would have fallen over completely. 

“You always needed a little push, didn’t you?” Iris smiled against the sun. “Or pull, in this case.”

“What did I just get myself into?”   
  


* * *

  
“What’s this place?” Iris asked, pointing to a large building on the western side of East Campus, where most of the undergraduate dormitories, cafeterias, sports facilities, and other miscellaneous student services were located. The sign read: ULI Marketplace. Underneath the unlit neon lettering, read: “Where All of your Student Needs Are Met.”

“Uhh, it’s the ULI Marketplace, where all of your student needs are met.” Noctis deadpanned. Iris pushed Noctis’s shoulder. It was always humorous to see Iris playfully shove Noctis given their disparate heights.

“Could you at least pretend to be excited?” Iris asked, tugging on Noctis’s denim jacket sleeve. It was like they were kids all over again, Iris begging Noctis to take her on an adventure outside of the Citadel, even they both knew very well they weren’t allowed outside.

“Okayyyyy,” Noctis whined before Iris basically dragged him inside.

“Wow! Look at all this neat stuff!” Iris gawked when she walked inside and was hit with all the marketplace had to offer. From plush versions of the ULI mascot, a Carbuncle not unlike Carby, to rows and rows of colored mechanical pencils and pens that lined the walls. Noctis had actually never been inside the Marketplace before. Instead, Ignis had always been the one who bought Noctis supplies, like the four-in-one pen/pencil that he kept on him like a good luck charm. And what was a prince like him supposed to do in that gigantic bookstore with his limitless credit card? “It’s like you can get almost anything here! I’d buy out the whole place if I could.”

“I probably wouldn’t do that,” Noctis replied, knowingly. 

Iris always had a knack for shopping. She once maxed out two credit cards on one mall trip. But to be fair, the credit cards weren’t that far from their limit and the things she bought weren’t just for her. She had actually bought Noctis the denim jacket that the Killer Wasp-targeted-fire had burnt to a crisp during the summer. Needless to say, he bought an almost identical one so Iris wouldn’t find out and absolutely destroy him on social media. She was a very petite girl but when it came to social media and taking down people that wronged her, she could make a fully-grown Bandersnatch run away in fear and need at least three intensive therapy sessions. 

“When did you become all Ignis on me?” Iris asked her hands on her hips accusatorially. 

“I would never,” Noctis replied in a poorly executed Tenebraen accent, placing his left hand on his chest in shock.

“There’s my Noct,” Iris got on her tippy toes and flicked the underside of Noctis’s chin and grinned. “I’m gonna take a look, gimme just a sec.”

Noctis didn’t have time to respond before Iris had shot off in the direction of the school pride section of the store that held the aforementioned Carbuncle plushies that paled in comparison to Carby and all his wonders; sweatshirts and hoodies adorned with ULI in big letters; and even ULI engraved flasks that were actually somewhat tasteful. They really went all out for school pride. Not just any university can be ranked #1 in school spirit AND the number of beer pong tournament-wins ten years in a row.

Noctis walked over to a wall filled with notebooks and stationery in the school supplies section of the store. He was shocked to see the vast variety of notebooks, with so many different sizes and so many more colors than he ever thought imaginable. One overzealous worker that probably had way too much time on their hands had even organized a whole section by color and labeled it with colors that Noctis had never heard of. From Pewter to Cerulean to Vermillion to Celadon to Fuschia to Saffron to Cinnabar to Viridian. That’s when he realized that the worker had probably just finished playing Pokemon Red or Blue. It was creative nonetheless.

Once he finally tore his mind away from how he wanted to play the new Pokemon game just to watch some of Pokemon slap each other senselessly, he made his way to the fancier section of the notebooks which consisted of mostly the notebooks he saw the rich international students from Tenebrae use. The same international students who wore all the high-end brand-name clothing that Noctis wouldn’t be caught dead in even though he could afford all of it and more, like the new brand Gucci-Prada-Nada. One notebook in the section immediately caught his eye: a Garula leatherbound notebook, with an engraved Chocobo on the cover. Noctis went to pick up the book, noting how similar it looked to the one that he kept under his bed, away from prying eyes.

He ran his hands over the cover, recalling the last time he had opened his almost exact copy. 

He had been having a rough day. Ignis was indisposed while preparing for his inevitable move to whatever medical school he would be attending in the spring. Gladio was busy training for an upcoming lacrosse match against Tenebrae University, which was more known for its extracurricular religious services than its sports or, really, its education. Luna was stuck in Shiva Hall, working on last minute edits to her first draft of her dissertation for departmental approval and she always did work better alone, in schoolwork and her lifetime role as the Oracle. And even Prompto had blown him off. He had said it was because he needed to prepare for his interview at Meteor Publishing and Noctis tried to not let the fact that Prompto didn’t want his help grate on him. 

Why didn’t Prompto want his help to get ready for his interview? Wasn’t an interview between two people? Wasn’t he good enough? He did know how to interview well. He once had a part time job at a bidet company before he got tired of rude customers being rude to him. If only they had known they were talking to the Crown Prince of Insomnia and not his fake customer service name Ross they would have been a tad bit more polite. Of course he had only taken the job because he wanted to know how people would actually treat him if they had no idea who he was so he kinda brought that on himself. Alexiri play, That’s What You Get by Paramore.

Why didn’t Prompto want to hang out with him?

And that’s when it hit Noctis like a Gigantoad tongue to the face.

He was with Mars.

Noctis threw himself onto his bed and screamed. He thrashed around, grabbing his pillow and hitting it against the bed and then over his face as he screamed into it even more. As he screamed and yelled and hated everything, he was glad to remember that Libertus, his roommate that he barely spoke more than three words to besides politely asking him to not be a raging trash monster, was out for the week, back home in Galahd. In a fit of rage, he threw his pillow against the wall. The Malboro Buddy poster than Noctis had put up because Prompto had found it a local thrift shop and gifted to him, fell underneath his bed, the poorly placed tape offering no resistance to the infuriated pillow attack.

He got up off the bed, tried in vain to uncrumple his shirt, and knelt down under his bed to grab the poster. Even if he was angry, for a reason that wasn’t all that apparent to him, he didn’t want the poster to go crumpled and forgotten under his bed. Like the way Prompto made him feel. He would be better than Prompto for sure.

How could Prompto blow him off for a boy he had just met? And how could he not tell Noctis that he was hanging out with that guy instead of him? Weren’t they supposed to be best friends? Don’t best friends tell each other everything? Did the summer mean nothing to him?

Noctis wrapped his hands around something hard under his bed, noting that it could not have been the poster or the Sans pillow he had totally forgotten about, and pulled it out to investigate.

There, with dust from disuse and being thrown to the proverbial wayside, was the Chocobo notebook that Prompto had given him only months before. Untouched. He felt something welling up in his eyes and the rest of his body. He had completely forgotten about the most thoughtful present he had received since he was like nine years old. He had completely forgotten about how great those hot days of summer had been, even if he and Prompto were still best friends here at college. It wasn’t the same. Just the two of them against the rest of Altissia, the rest of the world.

He tucked the notebook into his bookbag, vowing not to forget about those days but also to not forget himself in the process either.

Where would he go from here? Where could he go?

“To throw myself into school and be the best student I could possibly be,” Noctis said out loud, holding the bookstore notebook in his hand and remembering that stalwart resolution he made. He would never be in a position where one boy, even if it was his best friend, made him scream and thrash and outrage on his bed. He would leave that to hormone-ridden teenagers; he was a twenty-year-old, he had standards. Adult standards.

“You what now?” 

Noctis turned around, the notebook still in his hand to see Iris behind him, standing holding a white ULI Marketplace bag in her hand.

“What did you buy?” Noctis asked, changing the subject faster than one could say “you what now?”

“You always did notice the little things. Been like that since we were little.” Iris commented, swaying back and forth on her feet. She had always done that with her feet, even when Noctis first met her over ten years before. “But it’s a surprise so you’re going to have to wait.” 

“I can live with that,” Noctis replied, even though he really hated surprises. Anything to appease Gladio’s incredibly nosy little sister. Who knows how she would run with the knowledge that Noctis was thinking about how he threw himself into his schoolwork to finally try to get over a boy he should never have had a crush on? And not just because he was a guy with perfect hair and perfect blue eyes and perfect-

“What’s that?” Iris asked, pointing to the Chocobo notebook in Noctis’s hand.

“Oh, nothing,” Noctis replied, swiftly turning to place the notebook back on the shelf. He placed it back on the shelf haphazardly and turned around. Little did he know, his clumsy placement would knock over the surrounding notebooks almost immediately. With a deafening thud on the ground.

“Were you always this clumsy?” Iris asked, kneeling down to pick up some of the notebooks.

“What?” Noctis said, his cheeks blushing ever so slightly. “No. Not at all.”

“Maybe you’re clumsy now because…” Iris trailed off, looking the other way. 

“Because?”

“Oh, nothing. Never mind.” Iris replied, brushing herself off like she had book dust on her romper. She clearly didn’t because they weren't in an abandoned bookstore in the Royal Insomnia Library that Iris always wanted to run around into her father’s, Gladio’s, and basically all of the royal staff’s chagrin.“We should continue the tour and not think about anything I might know about you and uh - never mind!”

“You might know what now?” Noctis asked, willing his face not to redden like it really wanted to.

“Nothing!” Iris exclaimed, grabbing Noctis’s arm. “I want to see more of campus!” Without letting Noctis protest at all, Iris was dragging him out of the store, much to the other patrons’ bewilderment.   
  


* * *

  
“And this is, what?” Iris asked as Noctis led her into the large building in the middle of campus. The Solheim Library, named after the eponymous kingdom which was laden in Eos’s history, sat in the middle of campus, surrounded by the four points of the campus. The large building was famous for its unique architecture that was reminiscent of ancient Solheim structures, with its towering steampunk-like spires, airship motifs adorning the sides, and mechanical influences throughout its base and columns.

“This is the awe-inspiring, breath-taking, one of a kind Solheim Library,” Noctis ironically exclaimed, walking towards the automatic doors. He tried his hardest to channel his inner campus ambassador that he always mocked in his head for their over-the-top pep and devastatingly fake personas.

He remembered the first time he had visited the library earlier that year, earphones blocking out the noise of the people, campus ambassadors, and general buzz around him. Little did he know, walking through the theft detectors with any type of listening device in one’s ears results in the most uncomfortable frequency ringing throughout their head. Every first year has to go through it at least once, and then every time they go to the library after that because, let’s be real, everyone has some type of earbuds in at any given moment. Even if there’s no music playing and one is just trying to deter anyone from speaking to them about anything… ever. 

“Wow, it’s so… massive!” Iris gawked, straining her neck to get a full view of the whole fifteen stories of the library. “I can’t believe people actually study here?!” Iris turned to Noctis.

“Well do you want me to tell you or do you want to see for yourself?” Noctis asked, pulling out a pair of earphones from his bag.

“Oh, you’re so right!” Iris exclaimed. “Show don’t tell. Isn’t that what all the great writers say?”

“Exactly.” 

Noctis should know. He once thought he wanted to be a writer. That dream came from hours upon hours of reading books in the massive library that had accrued in the Citadel over generations. At one point in his brief yet tumultuous life, he had read more books than even Ignis had. And Ignis was supposed to be the smart one. (To be fair, Noctis read a lot of corny Young Adult fiction books more for the escape from the reality he scorned than Classic Literature that Ignis and his father had always implored him to read. There was just something more intriguing about people his age or barely older than him going through real struggles like coming of age and hating school than the spirit of man having to triumph against all odds and archaic language.)

“What are these for?” Iris asked when Noctis handed her the earphones which he had briefly cleaned with the underside of his shirt.

“Just put them on and play whatever music comes up first on your phone.”

“Ummm, alright…” Iris replied, not really know what was happening. She did just that and followed Noctis into the library. 

Noctis snickered as they passed through the theft detectors.   
  


* * *

  
“Okay, so that was incredibly rude,” Iris told Noctis, handing back his earphones when their elevator reached the top floor of the library. “Remind me never to trust you again

The top floor had once been a “Silent Study” floor where there were individual study pods for people to isolate themselves from the rest of the world and where if anyone would do so much as sneeze, everyone around them would turn around and glare at them like they had just murdered King Regis and bathed in his gushing blood like a waterfall of cascading red water. It was always so intense. But that all changed when Dean Gentiana came to office. She believed that the hostile environment was neither conducive to studying nor to “fostering a community of well-adjusted and functioning students and people for the future of Eos.”

Noctis didn’t really care either way as he could study just about anywhere, with almost any amount of noise around him. It actually calmed him knowing that there were students just like him struggling with the same kinds of schoolwork or assignments as he was. It was so different than the environment he grew up in where he was the only kid in the Citadel and therefore the only one who had to do any kind of studying.

“Everyone has to go through it at least once,” Noctis laughed. “It’s like a rite of passage.”

“So I’m like a ULI student now!” Iris squealed. 

“Ehhhhh.”

“Oh wow!” Iris ignored him and ran to the walls of the fifteenth floor which were actually just large windows from floor to ceiling. “The view is amazing!” 

Noctis walked up next to her and looked out the windows too. He could see all of ULI. Its four sides of campus which were all so different. From North Campus’s intricate and exquisite design reflecting its arts and humanities focus to South Campus’s more conservative and structured look reflecting its science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM) focus. From West Campus’s more city-like and planned design reflecting its connection to Insomnia proper and where many of the college administration and graduate studies were located to East Campus’s more rustic and neighborhood design reflecting its purpose of housing most of the student population and providing an escape from the hustle and bustle of the big city and grueling campus life. ULI really was one of a kind; even with everything that had happened in that one short semester and, really, that entire summer, he couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. 

“Y’know Noct, this almost feels like a date,” Iris said, resting her head against Noctis’s arm. 

“Ummm, not at all,” Noctis replied, shuffling a little away from her. He had always had a suspicion that she had a crush on him but hearing something like this was still jarring nonetheless. “And besides, if it were, your brother would kick my ass.” 

She was cute, no doubt, but he really wanted to tell that she was in no way his type. Not just because she didn’t have blond hair or blue eyes. Which he realized was a little shallow but sounded better than the fact that she wasn’t a gay. A guy. Wait, that wasn’t it. At least, well anyway.

“Would it kill you to play along for once?” Iris pouted. “It was clearly a JOKE.” Iris stuck her finger on Noctis’s chest. “You have Lady Lunafreya anyway.” Iris rolled her eyes and turned back to the view. 

Did he really have Lady Lunafreya? They talked a lot on the phone some nights and still sent each other letters where they had completely different, more intimate conversations, that were only uttered on the page. But it hadn’t been romantic in what seemed like forever. Was it ever romantic? Sure, Luna was his first kiss but they were just kids. And they kissed sometimes now but never in the way that he knew, and he assumed she knew, was expected of people that were in love. He loved her. But not in the way that he should have. 

Maybe he started feeling that way after he had met Prompto. But, if he was being completely honest, he hadn’t felt that way in a long time. Maybe ever. Even if he really wanted to.

Why was he still “with her”? Were they even still together? 

“Noctisssss,” Iris hissed, snapping him out of his thought jungle. 

“What’s up?” Noctis asked, looking back at her. 

“I should probably head home.” She swayed back and forth on her feet. “You should walk me out.”

“I can do that.”   
  


* * *

 

“Ahh,” Iris sighed when they were halfway through East Campus, walking through a hallway of trees that created a calm wind tunnel. On particularly blustery days, the wind could knock the hat off of someone’s head if they weren’t careful enough.  “The breeze feels so good.”

“Yeah,” Noctis replied, thinking back when he and Prompto would walk down this path before splitting at the next fork in the road to their respective dorms. Most times, one of them would make an excuse to go with the other to their dorm, citing homework that was better done in the presence of others or that he forgot something at the other’s apartment. Ever since Mars had come into the picture more and more, those walks were accompanied by the unwanted third person or just didn’t happen at all. He missed those walks with just the two of them, best friends.

“I bet it’s even more beautiful out here at night,” Iris added, walking ahead of Noctis, spinning around to see all that the trees and walkway had to offer. “I’m a city girl but I really dig the rustic charm here.”

“It  _ is _ really different than the rest of ULI and Insomnia, I’ll give you that,” Noctis replied, glad that the topic had changed enough for him to not obsess about how he was totally not missing his nighttime walks with Prompto and how when the lights on the trees lit up at the end of the day, they seemed to frame Prompto in the most angelic and mesmerizing light. If he were a photographer, he would have taken a snapshot of those moments when the light glittered off of Prompto’s eyes, perfectly.

“Maybe I’ll apply here when I’m a senior,” Iris gawked. “Imagine, me going to the same school that the Three Amigos all went to.”

“Ha, I forgot about that.” Noctis rubbed the back of his neck, remembering how, when they all were younger, maybe when Noctis was like eleven, he, Ignis, and Gladio had decided to give themselves a group name. It had taken them a little too long to come up with a name all three of them could agree on: Ignis wanted something intelligent and sophisticated like the Three Musketeers, which he had been hounding Noctis to read at the time; Gladio wanted something cool and powerful like the Three Bodybuilders like his muscular idols he had always looked up to; and Noctis just wanted to be the Three Friends, with a capital F for Fun. (He had only just turned eleven so no one faults him for that, except for Gladio when he wants to grind Noctis’s gears). 

Sometime during their heated argument which included thrown popcorn kernels and crudely veiled, pre-teen insults like butthead and monkeyface, Iris, who had been playing with her officially licensed Lucian Girl dollhouse, interjected with her own idea: the Three Amigos. She was quite wise for six-year-old whose only cares in the world were what colors she would use for her newest coloring book and how she would tackle the monkey bars the next day at elementary school.. 

The three of them used the name for a couple of years until one day, it just fell out of their vocabulary. Like how so many things had fallen out of Noctis’s vocabulary and mind over the years. The Three Amigos being the most innocuous of all of them. 

“Hey, isn’t that your friend?” Iris pointed out as they walked into the main quad separating most of the dormitories. “And another guy?”

And sure enough, there was Prompto sitting on the side of the Fountain of the Rouge, which had a very accurate sculpture of the Rouge (the only notable female ruler of Insomnia in its long, sometimes murky history) in the middle of the water, with more fountain water flowing out of her headdress and large shuriken. There was a lot of debate during the founding of ULI on which of the many Rulers of Yore would be on the fountain that marked the center of East Campus. But after much deliberation and study of ancient texts, the Rogue was chosen due to her belief that everyone should have a home that prompted her to often be found outside of her kingdom and helping others in finding wherever they might call home.

And sure enough, next to him was Mars, holding Prompto’s hand, playing with his fingers, and laughing about something Noctis couldn’t hear. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to be able to hear whatever was making Prompto throw his head back like a little kid. Especially when over the summer, that was Noctis’s job. But he couldn’t be angry or jealous or disgruntled; he was the one who stepped back, slowly and then all at once. For both of their sakes. Isn’t they what he wanted for Prompto? For him to be happy? 

“Yeah,” Noctis replied to Iris tersely. “Where should I drop you o-”

“Noct?” Prompto called, quickly pulling his hand away from Mars’s and shifting a couple of inches away as well. Noctis was too busy hyper-focusing on the way Mars looked so much bigger than Prompto, even when sitting down, to notice that subtle yet jarring movement. 

Mars furrowed his eyebrows in something like contempt when Noctis and Iris walked up to the two of them. Noctis wasn’t sure why Mars would look at him like that; Noctis was the one who backed away from his best friend because he wanted to give them space. And of course, the other reason which he did not want to admit, not to himself nor anyone else. 

“Heyyyyyy,” Noctis replied, so awkwardly that Iris nudged him in his side.

“You’re being weird,” She whispered from the side of her mouth. 

“I haven’t seen you around in a while,” Prompto replied, standing up and shaking himself like he was a dog that just got out of a horrendous bath. Noctis wanted to smile but kept himself from showing too much emotion on his face. Especially because that said emotion would probably make Mars a lot angrier and would give him an actual reason to furrow his stupid eyebrows on his stupid face. 

“Yeah, I was busy studying and stuff.” He rubbed the back of his head and averted eyes. He wasn’t exactly lying but felt worse all the same. And knew that he couldn't look Prompto in the eye then.

“Oh for sure,” Prompto replied, smiling. “We should totally catch up soon though, yeah?”

“Yeah, we totally should, like that would be super-”

“I’m Iris,” Iris held out her hand, cutting off both Noctis’s waterfall of a mouth and his view from Prompto. “I’m Gladio’s younger, but cooler, sister.”

“I can tell,” Prompto replied, taking her hand. “I’ve heard quite a bit about you.”

“Only bad things, I hope,” Iris winked which made Noctis’s face run cold. He had always seen her as a younger sister and if Gladio could hear her now, Prompto would never see the light of day ever again. Prompto who?

“You’re a funny one,” Prompto laughed. “Is it true that Gladio really became Noctis’s friend after you got lost outside the citadel and Noctis found you and took the blame?”

“Wow, Gladio really has talked about me, huh. I have so many more cute and funny and probably super embarrassing Noctis stories I can tell you.”

“Really, like what?” Prompto asked.

“Well, this one time Noctis was like super hungover after he and Gladio went out and he kept going on and on about how he wanted Gladio to carry him around in a babybjorn and-”

“Iris, I don’t think-” Noctis started.

“Hey, ba- Prompto.” Mars interrupted from outside of that growing two-person conversation. “I’m going to head out but I’ll see you tomorrow at the thing. Right?”

“Oh okay, Mars.” Mars got up and didn’t turn back to say goodbye to Noctis nor Iris. Yeah, Noctis was really thinking about getting that boy fired. The disrespect! And not just of the Crown Prince but of the daughter of the Senior Counsel to the King of Insomnia!

“What thing?” Iris asked Prompto with her trademark puppy dog begging eyes. Gladio had grown immune to it but Ignis and Noctis constantly fell for the sadness and desperation Iris was able to convey with a single look.

“Oh, there’s a Crownsguard party to celebrate the end of finals for all the Crownguard that are still in college,” Prompto explained, clearly not immune to Iris’s sad-eyed charm. 

“Ooh, sounds fun. Can’t wait to go,” Iris replied in a sing-song way. She was always like that when her sad-eyed charm worked. Like she had just won a game of wits when really no one wanted to see her cry. Nobody ever wants to be at the receiving end of an Iris crying smackdown. No one was ever left unscathed.

“Yeah, right.” Noctis finally spoke up after letting the two of them control the conversation so far. “Gladio would kill both of us and you know they wouldn’t find either of our bodies.”

“I can totally see that,” Prompto laughed. “I forgot how funny you were, Noct.” He swatted Noctis’s shoulder, the touch electrifying every neuron in Noctis’s skin. Mind over body was not working now. 

“You guys haven’t seen each other in a while?” Iris asked, now squatting on the side of the fountain so she could peer over Prompto and Noctis. 

“Noctis basically turned into a ghost the last half of the semester. Like I was about to call Luigi to come find you!”

Noctis and Iris looked at him, expressionless.

“You know because of... Luigi’s Mansion…” Crickets.  “No one? See Noct, you don’t get my amazing, might I say, iconic jokes anymore because we haven’t hung out in like forever!”

“Or maybe it just wasn’t that good of a joke?” Noct asked, smiling. They were falling right back into it and he wasn’t sure if he should be happy or terrified. If Iris could tell how dichotomous his feelings were, she didn’t show it on her face. And she was one to wear her heart on her sleeve and her thoughts on her face.

“That just means you need to come to the party!”

“Oh, I don’t know…” Noctis replied, scratching the back of his head. Could he really handle being at a party that both Prompto AND Mars were going to be? He hadn’t been to a party since before the summer which seemed like a lifetime ago. What would-

“I’m not really taking ‘no’ for an answer,” Prompto said, picking up his backpack from the side of the fountain. “So I’ll text you the details and yeah! I actually think Gladio and Ignis might be there.”

“But-“

Prompto put his finger to Noctis’s lips. Now the neurons in his lips and face and every part of his body were firing faster than they had since the first half of the semester. How quickly his body had rejected all of the avoidance his mind had been practicing. So much for all the time throwing himself at charts detailing disease incidence in tropical climate areas and cost-benefit analysis of simple decision making trees. In a matter of minutes, he was falling right back down the rabbit hole into the land of only needing one set of sky blue eyes and blond hair. 

Something had to give. And he wasn’t sure if he could handle it.    
  


* * *

  
“So, Prompto’s nice,” Iris told Noctis when he dropped her off at the bus stop outside of East Campus. He had offered to drive her home but she said she wanted some time to doodle and stare out of the bus window, longingly. Melodramatic. 

“Yeah…” Noctis didn’t really want to talk about Prompto anymore. Especially not with one of his best friend’s little sisters who might totally still have a crush on him. He didn’t even want to talk about him with himself. He couldn’t. He just-

“Oh, and before I forget,” Iris handed Noctis the bag she had gotten from the Marketplace hours before. “Here.” 

Noctis took the bag and went to open it before Iris slapped his hand away. 

“No peeking until I’m gone!” Iris reprimanded him. 

“You’re so- oh there’s the bus.” And sure enough, the 201 bus that connected East Campus with the rest of Insomnia was pulling up. Noctis had yet to take a public bus given his clout as the Crown Prince and the fact that he had only heard horror stories of the Insomnian Transportation Service’s (ITS) clientele. Gladio once told him that someone wouldn’t move their backpack from the seat and the person who wanted the seta straight up pulled them out of the seat, drop-kicked them, and didn't get in trouble due to the “No Backpacks on Seats” law that was passed only one day before. How convenient. 

“I’m so, what?” Iris asked, taking out her bus pass that all high school students received as a part of the Insomnian public school service. At least that was up to par.

“Nothing, never mind.” Noctis looked up at Iris with a sly smirk.

“You’re the worst!” Iris called before walking into the bus.

“I know!” Noctis laughed back. Sometimes just being the old Noctis with someone who didn’t see him as a bonafide failure was just what he needed. Iris would always be that person for him, even if it might have been through the rose-colored glasses of a crush.

Noctis walked back to his dorm, the bag in his hand, and his thoughts on how to survive the party if he even decided to actually go. He fell back on his bed, racking the decision in his mind. If he did go and everything went well, he could have a good time and drink and get to talk to the person who was supposed to be his best friend. But if he did go and everything went horribly wrong, he could end up crying on the bathroom floor, throwing up all over the place, making a fool out of himself, blacking out, falling off a balcony, ruining multiple friendships, burning a house down, peeing-

His phone buzzed in his jeans. He took it out and was surprised to see who had texted him.

**[Hey! Can’t w8 2 c u 2morro nite. (I’m using inch resting abbreviations cuz lit rally you used to attack me about them so suk on dat)]**

Noctis put the phone down and rubbed his face in exasperation. But he couldn’t keep himself from smiling just a little.

How could he not go now? Prompto couldn’t “w8 2 c” him apparently. Noctis laid back on his bed and hit his head on Iris’s gift bag that he had forgotten he had tossed there. He opened the bag and took out the gifts that Iris had so thoughtfully bought him for no apparent reason. There was a cute Moogle plushie that he would put on his nightstand, behind Carby of course and a small paperback book. He read the title of the book and knew what he had to do:

“How to be Social: For Dummies”

Noctis was going to that party, even if it killed him.

  
  
  
  



End file.
